Late-season wildfires choke US cities, towns with smoke

BOISE,

Idaho (AP) -- Heavy winter snow and a very wet spring in the Western U.S. generated predictions the 2017 wildfire season would be tame. But it's shaping up to be one of the worst in U.S. history in land burned.

Across the region, smoky haze in cities and towns prevented people from going outside except for short periods and prompted potential bans of high school football games. In some areas where homes have burned, people have stayed in makeshift shelters for weeks.

Some of the biggest fires this year started in early September, when the wildfire season usually starts winding down.

A look at the impact of the fires across the regi on : IDAHO High school soccer games have been canceled this week because of smoky air - and now football stadiums could remain vacant for the biggest games this Friday night.

That's because Idaho air quality is so bad in some places that children and teens must be kept indoors and activities like football and soccer must be avoided, said the state Department of Health and Welfare.

"There would be a lot of disappointed kids and disappointed parents if games are canceled," said Kathleen Tuck, spokeswoman for the Nampa School District in southwestern Idaho. "But our top priority is the safety of our students."

Northern Idaho residents are now breathing some of the worst air in the U.S. with an air quality indicator over 460 Thursday morning. A rating above 150 is considered unhealthy and levels above 300 are hazardous, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The smoky air hasn't affected Idaho's important farming sector because most crops have been harvested and the fall planting season has not started yet .

But "you look outside and it's like a thick fog. It's definitely impacting our sports, football and everything. Practices have been in the gym," said Kim Johnson, community relations manager at St. Mary's Hospital in the northern prairie city of Cott onw ood.

Her sister last year was hospitalized with respiratory failure from wildfire smoke, recovered and "learned her lesson this year," Johnson said.

The hospital itself is serving as a safe haven for people having trouble breathing and who show up to hangout because it has air conditioning and a cafeteria.

"We've pretty much had people in every day," Johnson said. MONTANA Ted Linford doesn't like to leave the filtered air inside his home for long, but stepped outside Thursday for some bow practice just in case the hazardous air stubbornly clinging to the town of Seeley Lake lifts while there's still some hunting season left.

Seeley Lake, in a valley next to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, usually empties of summer tourists and fills up with hunters at this time of the year. But this year has been anything but normal because of the thick smoke surrounding the area.

"It's like a ghost town," Linford said. "It's more like winter, when you just see local people."

Air quality hurt by a wildfire burning less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from Seeley Lake got so bad that health officials last month recommended that people sleep elsewhere. Most of the town of 1,600 was evacuated when the fire threatened to spread from the ridge where it was burning.

Linford and his wife live just outside the evacuation zone and took in a family a few weeks ago.

The fire threat eased this week but the smoke persists. Linford and his wife installed heavy duty filters in their forced-air heating system three weeks ago and the white filters have turned gray.

He spends most of the day inside and gets winded if he spends more than a couple of hours out si de. "It's just getting really old," Linford said. OREGON Fires have already scorched an area half the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island and the smoky haze is even bad in cities with no major wildfires n ear by.

Pendleton, a small city in eastern Oregon, has had air quality that ranked as unhealthy or hazardous all week even though it is 165 miles (265 kilometers) away from a major fire burning in the state's famed Columbia Gorge.

Images of the city's downtown in an East Oregonian newspaper on Monday showed clear air and crisp visibility. A photo taken from the same vantage point Tuesday showed so much smoke that the outlines of buildings were barely visible.

Pendleton's residents are suffering from stinging eyes, sore throats, headaches and coughs. Visibility is reduced to three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) sometimes, said Klaus Hoehna, a regulatory specialist for the city's environmental programs. People are trying to stay inside and not exert themselves, he said.