Niagara is breathing a little easier for the time being, now that an quality alert issued for region because of drifting wildfire smoke has been lifted.

Environment and Climate Change Canada issued the air quality alert for much of southern Ontario over the weekend after smoke, which is coming in from forest fires in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, led to potentially dangerous levels of particles in the air.

Meteorologist Alexandra Cournoyer said the alert, which was still in place Tuesday morning, was lifted just before 9 a.m.

She said this doesn’t mean Niagara’s entirely in the clear; just that the particle level is no longer as high as it was over the weekend and holiday Monday.

“We’re not back to completely clean air — it’s not back to zero,” she said. “But we’re back to concentrations

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