By Christina Jung · CBC News · August 24, 2018 

A number of forest fires in northwestern Ontario that are currently being monitored have increased in size and fire behaviour on Thursday, the Ministry's fire information officer Jonathan Scott said.

The fire in Quetico Park that was reported on July 29 is now currently measured at 2900 hectares in size, which grew from 500 hectares in approximately 24 hours.

"Fort Frances Fire 24 is being monitored," Scott explained, "[and] the reason why we're monitoring the fire is to allow the fire in the landscape to renew the forest."

He said the blaze near Woodland Cariboo Provincial Park has also been active over the last few days, measuring now at over 7000 hectares and approximately 50 kilometres west of the community of Poplar Hill.

Fire hazard remains high

As of Friday morning, there are currently 68 active forest fires in the northwestern Ontario region, with 63 of them either being held, observed or monitored.

There were a total of 10 new fires reported on Thursday, with Red Lake Fire 189 being the largest of them all measured at 15 hectares in size.

"It's a monitored fire along the Manitoba border ...[and] it actually crossed into Ontario from Manitoba yesterday," Scott said.

The rain that's expected for the weekend will most likely not reduce the fire hazard in the region, Scott said.

"Really, they are projecting that the forest fire hazards still going to be a moderate to high for today," Scott added.

"They're not projecting very large amounts [of rain] for the next few days ... [and] going forward, it all depends on how much rain we do get and how that's going to reduce the fire hazard."