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Smoke from Canadian wildfires detected in Norway


By AFP
Published : 09 Jun 2023 09:51 PM

Smoke from Canadian wildfires has been detected thousands of kilometres away in Norway this week, the Scandinavian country's Climate and Environmental Research Institute NILU said on Friday.

"Very weak" concentrations of smoke particles have been detected since  Monday, in particular at the Birkenes observatory in southern Norway,  researcher Nikolaos Evangeliou told AFP.

Measurements have varied depending on the fires' intensity, wind direction  and precipitation.

"We don't see serious peaks or large increases... so we don't see any  environmental issue (in Norway) nor serious health hazards either," he added.

Larger and more powerful wildfires than ever have scorched some 3.8 million  hectares of Canadian forests and displaced tens of thousands of residents in  recent weeks.

The scale is unprecedented, with some 2,300 fires registered so far this  year.

Southern Norway, like much of northern Europe, has also experienced an  unusually dry spring and early summer so far.

In southern Norway, no rain has fallen for 16 days and none is forecast for  the coming days.

A three-week ban on fires in open spaces was introduced on Thursday.