Smoke pushes athletics indoors at start of season

As Bigfork High School sports began to get underway last week, Mother Nature decided to complicate matters.

Smoke from fires across the Northwest settled into the Flathead Valley late last week, causing unhealthy air quality conditions and forcing coaches to conduct practices indoors.

“Everything since Thursday at about 10 a.m., has been moved inside,” Bigfork Activities Director Dave Creamer said. “We are scrambling a little bit to get our gym scheduled.”

Teams were able to get outside for a short while on Saturday when the air cleared temporarily.

Practicing indoors is not ideal as teams look toward their first competitions this weekend.

“The only consolation is we know everyone else is in the same boat,” Creamer said.

If the air quality remains unhealthy as the weekend approaches, school officials might have to look at postponing or moving the season’s first competitions.

Bigfork football is scheduled to play Florence on Friday in their opening game, and the cross country team is supposed to travel to Libby, which is experiencing similar air quality.

With the smoke being hard to predict, Creamer said no decisions about rescheduling or relocating competitions will take place until Friday.

“It doesn’t do me any good to make that call on Thursday,” he said. “If it doesn’t get any better ww will probably postpone the game, or move it.”

On Monday, Flathead Valley air-quality levels were deep into the “very unhealthy” category, which means people should avoid exerting themselves outside.

According to Kristen Martin, air-quality meteorologist for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the particulates in the air are approaching the “hazardous” level.

“And it’s not looking good for any significant clearing,” she said Monday afternoon. “We might see some clearing next week when the winds shift, but until then, it doesn’t look like the smoke is going anywhere.”

A Flathead Valley air quality monitor was installed in 2011. The last week has seen the top four days for particulates in the air since then.

The most unhealthy recorded day was last Thursday, Aug. 20, when particulate in the air averaged 105 micrograms of gaseous pollutant per cubic meter of ambient air.

Sunday and Thursday were third and fourth, with 24-hour averages of 95 and 74.

The second most unhealthy day was Monday, when hourly numbers rose above 230 by late afternoon and the 24-hour average was 102.

“Hazardous” is defined by a number more than 125.

Many places are contributing smoke to the Flathead Valley as wildfires burn across the Northwest.

“It is difficult to pinpoint the exact fires causing the smoke,” the state’s morning air advisory said. “Under the ridge of high pressure, the smoke is spreading over a large area, with individual plumes masked by the widespread smoke. There are currently 46 large, uncontained fires burning between Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, along with numerous other smaller blazes.”

As the ridge of high pressure strengthens this week, winds aloft will shift more to the southwest. Although this may help redirect some of the dense smoke from Washington away from Montana, smoke from the large fires in Idaho and Western Montana will continue to cause smoke impacts.

Ryan Murray contributed to this report.