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.
Several dozen people were also evacuated from the Obedjiwan reserve, near La Tuque, Quebec.
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.
Firefighters on the ground were being supported by airplane and helicopter water bombers, she said.
Due to the dry conditions, authorities forbid lighting of camp fires throughout most of the province.
Two other fires erupted in the Abitibi region in the west of the province, near the Ontario border, Sopfeu spokeswoman Joanie Cote told AFP.
A group of firefighters from Manitoba province in Western Canada, equipment and aircraft were to join operations soon, she said.
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