Other events in Baltic States

The bluish haze smelling of smoke that many residents of South and Central Estonia have informed the emergency center about since noon on Thursday in great probability is smoke carried here by winds from fires in Belarus and Ukraine, the on-duty forecaster at the Estonian Environment Agency told Louna-Eesti Postimees, citing LETA/BNS. 

Residents first reported a strong smell of smoke in the air in the South Estonian town of Torva and its environs, as well as Valga on the Estonian-Latvian border. 

The spokesman for the rescue center for South Estonia, Marek Kiik, told the regional edition of Postimees Thursday afternoon that they were informed about the situation.

"Rescuers have received several calls from areas next to the border informing about smoke that is spreading there. The source of the smoke or the mist has not been established," he said. 

Later in the afternoon, Kiik informed the newspaper that emergency calls informing about smoke of unknown origin had been received from Valga, Voru, Viljandi, Parnu and Rapla counties. 

A contact with the rescue service of the Pskov region of Russia revealed that there were no active fires in that region.

Taimi Paljak, lead forecaster at the Environment Agency's department for weather forecasts, told Louna-Eesti Postimees that in great probability the smoke originates from forest fires in Belarus and Ukraine. She said that the smoke could be seen on satellite photographs as a thin stream of mist.

"We compared satellite images from yesterday and today. It was carried here in the southeast flow and reached the sea over Latvia on Thursday," Paljak said late on Thursday afternoon. 

The Belarus news portal belnovosti.by reported that numerous fires have been put out in that country of late. Within a single day, 27 forest fires, seven peat field fires and 53 ground fires had to be extinguished. In the Narovlya region the blaze affected an area of 40 hectares. The extensive breakout of wildfires was attributed to dry and windy weather that has continued in Belarus for two weeks.