A hundred firefighters from South Korea arrived in Quebec on Sunday to fight the forest fires that are still raging in the province. Although their intensity has “significantly reduced” over the past few days, there is still a lot of work to be done.
A total of 150 South Korean firefighters landed Sunday afternoon at the Ottawa airport. They will spend the night in Maniwaki, in the Outaouais, before undergoing technical training on Monday and Tuesday.
The team will be deployed to Lebel-sur-Quévillon, in Jamésie, on Wednesday and will be added to the hundred or so firefighters from the United States already on site, indicated to The Press Stéphane Caron, prevention and communications coordinator at SOPFEU.
Three forest fires, active for a month now, are near Lebel-sur-Quévillon. Their total area is more than 600,000 hectares, approximately the equivalent of 12 times the size of the island of Montreal.
On Saturday, the approximately 2,000 residents of the city were able to return to their homes, for the second time since the start of the forest fire season. However, the specter of a new evacuation and financial difficulties looms.
The evacuation notice for the Mile 20 sector in Senneterre, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, is still in effect. Ditto for the Miquelon and Lac Madeleine sectors, on the territory of Eeyou Istchee Baie-James.
The intensity of the fires has “significantly reduced”
The intensity of forest fires has “significantly reduced” in recent days in several affected areas due to weather conditions, said the Ministry of Public Security (MSP).
In a report published on its website on Sunday, the ministry indicates that “the weather conditions of the last few days have considerably reduced the intensity of the forest fires in several affected areas”. “The situation now allows several communities to proceed with the reintegration of their population,” added the government.
Despite the positive, the work of the forest firefighters “is not finished” warned the MSP, recalling that the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU) is currently fighting several fires in the intensive zone, “three of which are outside of control and 25 are priority”. “The firefighting operations will be spread over several weeks,” said the ministry.
According to the SOPFEU website, at the end of the afternoon, 101 fires were still active in the province, of which 68 were in the intensive zone.
On its Facebook page on Sunday, SOPFEU for its part revealed that in total, in June, “it was 1,459,048 hectares of forest that burned in the intensive protection zone and 852,523 hectares in the northern zone”.
“This is an unprecedented situation. […] We are very proud of the work accomplished so far. But we still have a lot of work to do,” added the organization. In total, there have been 487 forest fires in Quebec so far, while the average for the past 10 years was 276.
Variable air quality
As for the air quality, it will be “good in eastern Quebec”, but “will however remain bad in the Nord-du-Québec” until Monday, reported the MSP.
“The situation therefore remains to be monitored for vulnerable people and those who will make physical efforts outside, such as moving. The situation should gradually improve in the western part of the province and in the Outaouais,” the ministry also warned.
Environment Canada, for its part, issued special weather reports on Sunday concerning poor air quality in certain regions in northern Quebec, including Chibougamau and Matagami. “High concentrations of fine particles from forest fires lead to poor air quality and reduced visibility in places. These conditions could persist for the next few days,” the federal agency said in these bulletins.
Note: no Environment Canada warning was in effect for the greater Montreal area on Sunday morning. In the afternoon, the metropolis was still ranked ninth among the cities with the most polluted air in the world, according to the IQAir website.
With The Canadian Press