A plume of smoke from forest fires in Quebec has been affecting France and more particularly the Paris region since Tuesday morning, but should not affect the air quality of the inhabitants too much.
Over Paris and its suburbs, air quality was considered to be degraded late Tuesday afternoon local time, according to the website of the Island Air Quality Monitoring Association. -of France.
However, this level is well below the bad, very bad and extremely degraded air quality indices.
“At the moment, observations on the ground do not show any impact on the surface,” confirmed the Airparif Twitter account.
The index should be similar for the next day, although a cloud of fine particles assessed as “bad” will be found over a small part of the south-east of the Paris region.
In the ranking of the most polluted major cities in the world, Paris was therefore only in 57th place on Tuesday with an index of 39, just behind Toronto which had a rate of 41, according to the IQAir ranking.
This is a much lower rate than what was observed on Sunday in Montreal when the highest rate reached 239, making it the most polluted city in the world.
In general, the air quality was quite good in France on Tuesday afternoon, except for the Paris region, part of Normandy and Brittany and a few places in the south of the country.
Not a first
The inhabitants of the French capital had experienced much worse last July, when the smoke from the fires affecting the Gironde, a department in the south-west of the country, had risen.
The Eiffel Tower was then found under a cloud of mist and a smell of smoke could be felt in the city and its surroundings.
According to French meteorologists, the possible peak of the smoke plume is however expected for Thursday above France, reported West France.