The worst of the B.C. wildfire season may be over.

According to chief fire information office Kevin Skrepnek, there is a lot less fire activity occurring in the province, temperatures are cooling, and the risk of dry lighting is tapering off.

鈥淲e are heading into a fairly cool, wet pattern. It鈥檚 probably safe to say the worst is over,鈥� Skrepnek said. 鈥淏ut, there are definitely some areas of the province that are still very much under threat. It is also not uncommon to see a relatively warm September as well.鈥�

A record number of hectares have burned this fire season at an estimated 1,252,000 hectares, the previous record being in 2017 at 1,216,000 hectares.

鈥淭hat jump in number wasn鈥檛 due to a dramatic increase in fire activity or anything like that,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t was just based on better mapping, as we were contending with such a thick cloud of smoke over the province. So, getting an accurate number on these fires had been quite challenging.鈥�

Skrepnek cautioned that while 2018 does hold the record for hectares burned, it doesn鈥檛 correlate to impact on people and property.

鈥淟ooking at 2003 and last year just to name a few, definitely the overall impact of those years to property, values and timber values was quite a bit higher than this year.鈥�

The total cost to date for the BC Wildfire Service for strictly fire suppression is $360 million.

鈥淟ooking at the last five years, at money spent in terms of this date, this would be the second most spent with the first being last year,鈥� said Skrepnek. 鈥淔or comparison sake, as of this date in 2017, our estimated cost we are sitting at a little over $442 million.鈥�