The Cassiar Highway wildfire near the Yukon border has limited travel in the area. (bcwildfire.ca)

The B.C. Forest Service says more than half the province is now at a moderate-to-high fire danger rating due to a return of hot summer weather.

After a week of relatively cool temperatures and rain across much of B.C., it hasn't taken long for forested areas to start to dry out again, according to fire information officer Alyson Crouch.

"At this point in time 56 per cent of the province is sitting at a moderate-to-high danger rating," Crouch told CBC News on Friday. "And there are pockets of extreme [dryness] that are continuing to expand particularly in the southwest, northwest and central-to-northern regions of the province."

Campfire bans remain in place across much of B.C. with the Coastal Fire Centre predicting it could be early September before the bans are lifted.

About 250 wildfires were burning across the province Friday night, but no evacuation orders or alerts were in effect.

Highway partly closed

Just south of the Yukon border, a fire that has been burning steadily near the Cassiar Highway has grown to 250 square kilometers.

The highway is open, but only in the morning and early afternoon.

Even then, cars are being escorted through the fire zone by Ministry of Transportation vehicles.

Coastal regions are also being warned about the return of winds flowing out from the Interior carrying smoke from some large fires west and north of Williams Lake, about 300 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

Smoke from the fires last week drifted as far south as the Lower Mainland, even though the closest fire was hundreds of kilometres from the region.

With files from the CBC's Jackie Sharkey