KAMLOOPS, B.C. - For the first time since British Columbia's wildfire season began in April, the Wildfire Service is calling for help from outside the province.

Requests have been sent to Australia, New Zealand and Mexico, with spokeswoman Kyla Fraser expecting information about their responses expected soon.

“We have a few out-of-province crews, I believe from Alberta, helping in the southeast fire centre,” said Fraser.

“We have reached out to both national and international resources.”

Early Friday, there were 449 active wildfires across B.C., down from 452 the previous evening.

Most were caused by some of the thousands of lightning strikes from a nearly week-long series of storms, including about 5,000 strikes recorded Thursday, she said.

“Luckily most of these are burning in remote areas and are quite small at the moment,” she said, “but we are certainly bracing ourselves for more fires of significance to pop up this weekend as a result of weather and the sheer number of fires that we have seen.”

Wildfire risk across the northwestern quarter of the province was ranked at high to extreme, prompting the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako to issue several evacuation orders and alerts for properties in remote areas around Houston, Burns Lake and Francois Lake.

A campfire ban was also imposed Friday across the northwest region where the Wildfire Service says six of B.C.'s 14 most significant fires were located.

In southern B.C., the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen issued evacuation orders for a handful of properties south of Cawston that were threatened by a nearly 66-square-kilometre wildfire, the largest active fire.

Along the southeastern boundary with Alberta, Parks Canada said three lightning-caused wildfires were burning in Kootenay, Yoho and Banff national parks. Road closures, area and trail closures, as well as evacuation orders, were in place, the parks service said in a news release.

Those include the continued evacuation of Kootenay Park Lodge and the ongoing closure of Highway 93 through Kootenay National Park from Radium east to Alberta. That route was not expected to reopen until at least Sunday, with drivers detoured to Highway 95 and Highway 1 via Golden.

DriveBC, the B.C. government's online website of road conditions, issued a travel advisory Friday warning of congestion from Radium to Golden.

- By Beth Leighton in Vancouver