Forest fires flare north of Montreal

Terra Daily via Agence France-Presse: Some 800 firefighters were dispatched on Thursday to Quebec's outback to combat more than a dozen forest fires raging north of Montreal, a provincial agency announced Most went to the Haute-Mauricie region 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the Quebec metropolis to douse a dozen of the blazes.

Thick smoke swept over the Wemotaci native reservation, forcing more than 1,300 to evacuate their homes overnight. The village, however, was not threatened by flames and no one was injured.

…Four of the fires, some of them sparked by lightning, were out of control in exceptionally dry forests after a record heat wave in recent days, Marie-Louise Harvey, spokeswoman for Quebec's forest fire fighting agency, Sopfeu, earlier told public broadcaster Radio-Canada….