Canadian fires: The cities of Montreal and Ottawa in Canada, and Boston in the United States, were on alert Monday for the arrival of smoke from the Quebec wildfires, as authorities announced in the two countries.
The smell of burning was clearly visible on Monday morning in the streets of Montreal and Ottawa. Thousands of hectares burned in the center of Quebec, where 52 outbreaks of forest fires, of which eight were out of control, according to Society for the Protection of Forests Against Fire (Sopfeu), a government agency of the French-speaking province.
On Monday also issued the first smoke warning across southern Quebec, the area most densely populated of the province, as they reached the region of Ottawa in Ontario, due to the change of wind direction.
The U.S. Weather Service (NOAA) issued an alert that covers the states of Maine and New Hampshire, bordering Quebec and in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Public Health Agency of Quebec invited the “vulnerable people to be cautious,” recalling in a statement that “the smoke mostly affects people with respiratory or heart disease and asthmatic children.”
