The forest fires raging on the North Shore are making air quality in the region problematic.
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The air pollution index was also at 112 in Sept-Îles, according to data from the IQAir.com site, a quality considered poor for sensitive groups.
The City of Port-Cartier also indicated in its Facebook account that this was an important problem for the municipality on Sunday.
“The air quality exceeds the threshold for a smog warning in Sept-Îles by five times,” mentions meteorologist Gilles Brien, in an interview with LCN. “It’s the equivalent of walking into a room with at least half a dozen smokers.”
“Visibility this morning was less than a kilometer in the smoke,” he adds. “It was like a fog with fine particles, the worst pollution. When it falls to the ground at night, it’s really poor quality air. It will improve within 24 hours.”
In the absence of precipitation, fires continue to advance in the region, but towards the north, and not towards neighboring municipalities.
“It’s the only region spared from the rain, because it’s the flood today in southern Quebec,” says Mr. Brien. “The rain will pass just south of Port-Cartier and [de] Sept-Îles today. Maybe a few drops possible, but we are very far from the quantities that would be necessary.
“Fortunately, we add a lot of humidity with a massive system that covers all of southern Quebec,” he adds. “The relative humidity increases, and with that, we will reduce the flammability index. At the moment in Canada, the two sources of fire are in British Columbia and Quebec.
Rain is expected Wednesday on the North Shore.
Watch the full interview in the video above.
