弗莱高温警报

Fredericton area residents are being warned to stay cool as New Brunswick's capital city is under a heat advisory for a third day in a row.

The temperature is supposed to hit [B][COLOR="Red"]34 C[/COLOR][/B] on Tuesday, and the humidex could make it feel as high as [B][COLOR="red"]39 C[/COLOR][/B], making Fredericton the hottest place in the province.

The city issued a Level 2 heat alert on Tuesday, following Level 1 one alerts issued on Sunday and Monday.

"Heat can cause real health issues, and in more serious cases it can result in death, so the whole issue of that is important," said Wayne Knorr, an official with the city of Fredericton.

Fredericton is just one of four cities in the country issuing heat alerts this summer through a pilot project called the Heat Alert and Response System.

Knorr said the heat alerts are getting valuable information out to the public.

"It certainly is a flag for vulnerable [members of the] public, people who are homeless, certainly people who have respiratory illnesses," he said.

"It's a flag for home-care workers to be checking in on the people whom they're responsible for, and for child care workers."


[B]Three levels of alerts[/B]

The alert system has three different levels of alerts that it can issue.

[B]A Level 1 alert means the most vulnerable people, those with respiratory issues or cardiovascular diseases, will be affected.

A Level 2 alert indicates that all people are at risk of heat stress and a Level 3, or extreme heat alert, means that everyone is at "high risk" for heat-related illnesses and heat stroke.[/B]

Knorr said all three levels of alerts have been issued during the pilot program.

But it's too soon to say what affect the program had or if it should be continued.

"One of the things we'll be doing is gathering again in November, curiously enough when it may be a bit cooler, to do some of the debriefs that go along with looking at how the summer went, what we learned, were the levels at the right point and did the public get the information they needed to know," he said.