Cooler weather across most of southern B.C. should give weary firefighters some respite this weekend – but the province isn’t out of drought and wildfire danger yet.

Showers were already falling in parts of Metro Vancouver before dawn Friday morning and rain is forecast across most of Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast, Whistler, the Cariboo, Okanagan and southern Interior, including Kamloops and the Shuswap.

The front could also bring lightning to parts of the Interior, but it's hoped that lower temperatures and higher humidity will starve any new fire starts. BC Wildfire Services confirmed the number of wildfires burning around B.C. dropped from 250 to 209 by Friday afternoon.

Officials say the incoming cold front has helped in the decision to rescind evacuation alerts for the Coldstream Creek fire southwest of Ashcroft and for the Adams West blaze, southeast of Clearwater.

Progress has also been made in the stubborn Westside Road wildfire that kept residents on 70 properties north of West Kelowna out of their homes.

The evacuation order has been downgraded to an evacuation alert, Central Okanagan Emergency Operations announced Friday morning. Residents are now permitted to return home, but must be prepared to leave home on a moment’s notice. The area will also remain closed to non-residents.

The blaze hasn't grown in the past day and is now 25 per cent contained.

Yet officials across the province are warning people not to become lulled into a false sense of security by Friday’s rains.

Officials say Vancouver has only received 17 mm of rain since the start of May instead of the usual 154 – and that the recent showers are just a drop in the bucket of Metro Vancouver’s reservoirs.

“This is not even going to make a dent,” says North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto. “We need substantial rainfall before we’re going to be able to say it’s okay to use sprinklers again.”

A “couple of millimetres of rain” won’t do much to replenish the reservoirs, he adds – upwards of 150 millimetres are needed to make a difference.

“With the forest fire situation as well – it still is quite severe,” Mussatto says. “So we have to make sure we’re staying vigilant and not using any more water than we need.”

Precipitation is forecast to continue through the weekend, but the heat is due to return by early next week.

With files from The Canadian Press