Calif. athletic teams cope with smoke

Air pollution too high for practice, especially for endurance sports

The fire is three hours away, but out the window at Healdsburg High School, it’s gray and dark. The air is hazy and thick, like someone pulled a cloth over your face.

People walk around outside wearing surgical ventilator masks. School was closed Tuesday.

It’s playoff season for fall sports, and the Healdsburg cross-country team has runners ready to compete for North Bay League titles, and, if they achieve qualifying times, for state titles. But the Air Quality Index, a federal measurement of air pollution, has been too high for a week to allow any kind of practice, let alone for an endurance sport.

The team’s coach, Kate Guthrie, called a fitness club in town to ask if her athletes could work out there to stay in shape. She promised her runners would show up at off-peak hours. The gym has only six treadmills. The manager said the team could take them all.

“I explained hopefully we wouldn’t have to use it for very long,” Guthrie said.

The 15 partially contained wildfires burning up the Golden State have caused tragedy, destruction and loss of life, but they’ve also thrown off-kilter the mundane traditions of day-to-day life, like high school sports. The California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school athletics, on Tuesday pushed back a slew of state championships, hoping the fires peter out soon or the smoke at least blows over. In the meantime, countless teams in every sport are struggling to cope with the impact of nearby blazes, and with the treacherous air quality created by the smoke and ash, state officials said this week.

“It’s hard because everyone is impacted,” CIF spokeswoman Rebecca Brutlag said. “Either the community is under threat or the smoke is getting involved and people can’t get outside.”