Forest Fires Continue to Burn in Quebec

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(Host) Smoke from forest fires in the James Bay region of Canada has drifted east of Vermont, but hundreds of firefighters are still battling the blazes. Charlotte Leger of the Forest Fire Protection Agency of Quebec says there are dozens of fires currently burning.

Leger says nine fires in a remote area of Quebec are still out of control. She says the fires have consumed 3,000 square miles of forest. The fires are the worst the province has seen since the mid- 1990s:

(Leger) “The lack of rain made it very dry in that area. The trees are mostly softwood, so they burn very easily at this time of year. All of them were caused by lightning that we had a week ago. There was a thunderstorm, and all in the same day they began.”

(Host) Leger says 600 residents of a Cree village have been evacuated from an area near the fires. She says with no rain in the forecast, it could be several more days before firefighters can contain the blazes.

Over the weekend, smoke from the fires darkened skies in Vermont and along the eastern seaboard as far south as Washington, D.C.

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