MONTREAL – The arrival of rain in eastern Canada on Saturday brought relief to firefighters battling historic wildfires for nearly a week in the province of Nova Scotia, though the situation in Quebec remained critical.

Of the fires threatening Nova Scotia’s provincial capital Halifax, 85 per cent have been brought under control to “a state of being held”, the authorities said at a press conference on Saturday morning.

“The rain that we are getting now is going to help the suppression issues, but that being said, this fire is not out and it will not be declared out for some time,” said Mr Dave Steeves of the provincial Department of Natural Resources.

By Friday evening, half of the 16,000 evacuees from Halifax’s north-eastern suburbs had been allowed to return home.

“This is excellent,” Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Services deputy chief Dave Meldrum said of the rain.

“This is not a heavy downpour that runs off and disappears – this will soak into the ground more effectively.”

Canadian armed services and American firefighters are expected to join the region’s wildfire suppression efforts over the weekend.

After major flare-ups in the west of the country in May, notably in the prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, firefighting shifted in the past week to Nova Scotia on the Atlantic coast and the French-speaking province of Quebec.

More than 130 forest fires, some 80 of them considered out of control, remain active in Quebec, forcing more than 2,000 additional people to evacuate.

“Winds will be variable today, so it could change at any time,” warned Ms Isabelle Gariepy of the Sopfeu forest fire protection service.

A fire that forced more than 10,000 people to evacuate the region around Sept-Iles city, in the north of Quebec near the St Lawrence River, remained “out of control” but had not evolved further overnight, the authorities said.

Canada has been hit repeatedly by extreme weather in recent years, the intensity and frequency of which have increased due to global warming. AFP