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Smoky conditions, Special Air Quality Statement for most of Alberta

Smoke from a number of forest fire burning in northern Alberta is unfortunately moving into this region.

Environment Canada’s Kyle Fougere tells My Lethbridge Now.com it’s been hazy here in the south, however it’s going to get worse for the weekend. “There is a weak cold front moving through Alberta. It’s not really changing the temperature. What it is doing is bringing all that smoke from northern Alberta down through the province. There is a thick band of smoke extending from Red Deer up to Slave Lake (as of Thursday afternoon) and it’s moving south.”

Fougere says the smoke should start to clear across most of southern Alberta with a change in the wind pattern by Sunday night.

There are currently over a dozen fires burning in Alberta’s north and northwest. The biggest one if Chuckegg Creek Fire near High Level, which is more than 230,000 hectares in size. Several communities in the north are either under evacuation order or evacuation alert.

Meanwhile, Environment Canada issued a Special Air Quality Statement for smoke early Thursday afternoon. That covers near 90% of the province with the exception of the extreme southwest.

Patrick Siedlecki
Patrick Siedlecki
Pat has been a mainstay in the CJOC News department from the time the station launched in 2007. He's been in the position of News Director since then and has been anchoring daily news casts as well as reporting and working behind the scenes. Community is important to him and keeping CJOC listeners and readers informed about what's happening across southern Alberta and beyond. Pat has been in radio broadcasting for the past 24 years, starting in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in 1997 and then moving up island to Nanaimo for another few years before heading to Lethbridge in 2007. Pat grew up in the small Saskatchewan farming town of Foam Lake. After high school, he went to Western Academy Broadcasting College (WABC) in Saskatoon prior to moving to the island. Pat also spent several years broadcasting hockey in the BCHL as well as seven years as the radio voice of the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the WHL. Pat has been working at Cornerstone Funeral Home in Lethbridge as a Certified Life Celebrant and Funeral Assistant since 2016. News and sports have always been Pat's passion from the time he was a teenager and he's always been grateful to have had the opportunity to make that part of what's been a fun and long radio career!
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