Environment News

TORONTO — This week, for the first time in its history, the Toronto Zoo's animals were under serious threat from smoky skies.

Environment Canada has been advising people to check the Air Quality Health Index as wildfire smoke blanketed large swaths of Canada in recent days.

HALIFAX — Most evacuation orders were lifted Friday across Nova Scotia, almost two weeks after a series of unprecedented wildfires broke out in the southwestern corner of the province and in suburban Halifax.

MONTREAL — The arrival of firefighters from France and New Brunswick is expected to bolster efforts to contain and control the large number of fires burning across Quebec in what's expected to be a marathon wildfire season, officials said Friday.

TROUT LAKE, N.W.T. — An out-of-control wildfire burning near Sambaa K'e, a small Dene community in the Northwest Territories, has destroyed two cabins.

NEW YORK (AP) — Live racing will resume at Belmont Park on Friday following significant improvement in air quality conditions in the state, the New York Racing Association announced.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — James Watt, the Reagan administration’s sharp-tongued, pro-development interior secretary who was admired by conservatives but ran afoul of environmentalists, Beach Boys fans and eventually the president, has died. He was 85.

DETROIT (AP) — Electric vehicles made by General Motors will be able to use much of Tesla's extensive charging network beginning early next year.

From Revelstoke to Fernie, Golden to Kimberley, the communities that make up the Kootenays region of southeast B.C. have long been meccas for wilderness lovers.