FILE PHOTO - Crews work to contain the Westside Road wildfire Wednesday, July 23, 2015.

(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)

Many of the wildfires that popped up in the Thompson-Okanagan over the past week are now under control or being held, and don't pose a threat to people or structures.

Fire information officer Kyla Fraser says many of the blazes that started on the weekend are now being monitored by wildfire crews.

The 69-hectare Lauder Road fire about 8.5 kilometres east of Highway 5A was the biggest to start this weekend and is now being held as of today, April 14.

“We did send out a crew today and we’ll send out one tomorrow just to do a final patrol of the area,” Fraser says.

The cause of a roughly 30-hectare fire burning in really steep terrain about 17 kilometres northwest of Lytton has yet to be determined.

“Because it’s burning in such a steep area it’s doing what we call fuel finding. Because it’s steep the fire is closer to the ground which preheats the fuel in front of it and keeps moving up the hill, but no threats to life or structure," Fraser says.

Three fires burning south of Cawston in the Similkameen Valley are either under control or have been extinguished by wildfire crews. One of the them should be out by tomorrow.

“We did have three fires originally, since then three of them have been called out and we had three personnel go and patrol there today,” Fraser says. “There’s just one left there, about two hectares in size. We haven’t seen much change on that yet so hopefully they’ll be able to call that out shortly as well.”

Crews have been hesitant to call the Chief Jules Way fire near Chase extinguished because of potential hotspots.

“It’s still listed as under control and five hectares, but we haven’t really seen any change on that in the past week,” Fraser says. “I’m assuming they’re still working on putting out any remaining hotspots… we don’t like to classify things as out until we’re 100 per cent sure that there are no hot spots left in the area.”

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