Wildfires in Quebec cast pall

By ANDRÉ PICARD
From Monday's Globe and Mail


Montreal — Dozens of forest fires raged in Quebec's northern region Sunday, causing health risks, disrupting air travel, devastating some of the province's richest forest stocks and sending a smoky haze over wide areas of eastern North America.

Last night Montreal's public health officials issued an air quality warning, saying that the elderly, young children and those with asthma were particularly at risk and that everyone should keep outdoor activities to a minimum until the haze clears from the fires burning 1,000 kilometres north.

The Cree villages of Nemaska and Chisasibi were the only populated areas threatened by the flames. All 500 residents of Nemaska have moved out and almost 150 residents of Chisasibi have left after being sickened by the smoke.

On Sunday, there were 44 fires burning in Quebec, 11 of them out of control.

The province's forest fire protection service said much of the smoke that covered most of Quebec, parts of Ontario and the northeastern United States, stretching as far south as Washington, D.C., came from a fire burning since July 2 in the region of Nemiscau, near James Bay. That fire prompted the evacuation of the villages and at times threatened the power grid, as much of the province's power is generated in the James Bay area.

The relentless blanket of smoke also covered parts of New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, posing a health risk to people with pulmonary problems, in particular those with asthma. It left a number of Ontario's hospital emergency rooms overwhelmed.

New York and Pennsylvania advised residents with respiratory and heart conditions to stay indoors. The New York alert was statewide. Pennsylvania's covered 20 counties.

In Montreal, Claude Gagnon, a chemist with the city, said that fine particles in the air were measured at a level of 120 micrograms per cubic metre across the island of Montreal on Sunday, the highest level on record. The upper limit of acceptability is 60 micrograms per cubic meter.

Chantal Drapeau, spokeswoman for the provincial forest-firefighting service, said some of the fires are so hot that firefighters are powerless against them.

"The heat is so intense that water bombers are useless. They drop their load and the water evaporates in the air before it even hits the ground," she said.

Ms. Drapeau said the thick smoke is also impeding firefighting efforts. Visibility is so poor that most of the fire service planes and helicopters have been grounded. That means crews can't be flown to sites.

Air travel has also been affected, with small planes grounded as far away as Toronto because the smoke has reduced visibility.

Some of the smaller fires are also linking up and creating far bigger burns, Ms. Drapeau said. "At this point, we really need a helping hand from Mother Nature, but that doesn't seem imminent," she said.

The vast majority of the fires are burning north of the Manicouagan River, on Quebec's North Shore, up to Lake Mistassini, in the James Bay region.

Warm, dry weather is forecast for northern Quebec for the next few days, which will add to firefighting woes. But winds are expected to shift, as early as Monday, lifting the haze over southern cities.

Although the Nemiscau fire was the most noticeable of those burning in northern Quebec, it was not the most severe.

A fire north of Lac St-Jean — between the Manicouagan Reservoir and Mistassini River — has burned about 650 square kilometres of forest and is considered out of control, one of the fires in the area with such a designation.

"Those are fires we basically have to leave alone for the meantime," said Eric Santerre of the provincial forest fire protection service, noting the smoke is too thick for planes to travel through it. "We need rain to bring down the amount of smoke before we can go in."

So far this year, 68,078 hectares of forest have burned in Quebec, and there have been 353 fires. Almost all have been caused by lightning. Because of a very dry winter and spring, the area destroyed by blazes is much larger than usual. For the past five years, the average area burned after the first week of July has been just over 25,000 hectares.

There are 500 firefighters working to put out the fires. A fire ban has been in effect since July 4 in nearly every region of Quebec north of the St. Lawrence River.