REGINA — Regina residents woke up to smoke — and plenty of it — Friday morning.

Dave Carlsen, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the smoke that was visible throughout the province came from the forest fires in British Columbia.

"It's pretty widespread and pretty bad," he said Friday morning about the smoky situation.

Carlsen said the B.C. smoke moved up into the middle part of the atmosphere, about four or five kilometres above the Earth's surface. From there, winds carried it across the Rocky Mountains.

"And then we had that cold front pass through," he said. "And what that's doing is it's mixing the air from the mid-atmosphere downward, and so it's kind of a weird situation — but not all that uncommon."

It was expected to last throughout much of the day Friday, dissipating for the most part by Saturday.

"It looks like there's going to be a system bringing in some southeast winds (Saturday) and actually especially over southeast Saskatchewan, including Regina, the winds are going to kind of kick up a bit stronger — 40 to 60 kilometres an hour out of the southeast — and so what that should do is bring in some less smoky air from the Dakotas. And so hopefully that will help flush things out," he said.

In the meantime, the smoke caused a reduction in visibility — down to one or two kilometres at times throughout much of the province.

Smoke also meant air quality was poor with Regina's fluctuating between moderate and high risk throughout much of the day.

Due to the poor air quality, the Ministry of Health issued a health advisory, warning Saskatchewan residents to take precautions, particularly if they have risk factors like heart or lung disease, asthma, are over 65, or have young children.

Deputy chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said people with risk factors should consider staying indoors with windows closed, and even healthy people should be careful.

"When it becomes really hazy so that you can't maybe see even as far as a kilometre, that's when it's a good idea — even if you're otherwise healthy — not to go for that afternoon jog and just wait a few hours until it clears up," he said, adding people might experience eye and throat irritation and coughing.

"If you have asthma, this is the time to make sure you've got all your inhalers handy and make sure you're taking your regular medications on a regular basis so that you don't get any health effects," he said.

Shahab said the smoke over Saskatchewan differs from smog or more direct local smoke in that Friday's smoke doesn't contain a lot of ozone particles, often responsible for respiratory irritation and other symptoms.

"You can use air conditioning because that does filter the air," he said. "But really it's not the kind of smoke and smog you get from a direct source. It's far away and a lot of it is in the upper atmosphere as well, so it is very different in that sense."

Shahab said because air quality changes frequently, people should check the Environment Canada web site's Air Quality Health Index periodically — even into the next few days — to see whether they should take precautions.

"We'll monitor it as we go along, but hopefully this will pass along and we don't expect to see any significant health effects," he said.

hpolischuk@leaderpost.canwest.com