A ban on open fires has been lifted in large portions of Quebec. The province’s wildfire prevention agency, SOPFEU, announced that as of Monday evening, it would lift a fire ban put in place last weekend affecting nearly all of Quebec. The ban still applies to Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Lanaudière, Laurentians, Northern Quebec and Outaouais. The ban was lifted “considering the conditions currently prevailing in the province and the workload currently facing SOPFEU,” the agency noted in a news release. Southern Quebec is under a severe thunderstorm warning, with a risk of a possible tornado. There are currently nine forest fires burning in the Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ), namely the southern, populated region of Quebec, where SOPFEU maintains a strict policy to aggressively fight all wildfires. Another 178 fires are burning in the Northern Zone (NZ), where naturally occurring (lightning) fires are allowed to burn for ecological regeneration. Since the start of the protection season, 296 fires have impacted 102,488 hectares in the IPZ, and 269 fires have impacted 539,214 hectares in the NZ, SOPFEU stated.
