MOSES LAKE — With wildfires popping up across Eastern Washington, most of the state has also felt their impact – specifically in the daily air quality. With fall sports only a couple of weeks away, Moses Lake High School Athletic Director Loren Sandhop offered some insight into how they’re navigating the unpredictable wildfire season.  

“Even our Lake Lifts, we’re having to take that into account,” Sandhop said. “They not only lift weights, but they go outside to do running, plyometrics and speed stuff like that.”

With the air quality consistently being unsafe to practice throughout late July and early August, student-athletes and coaches have had to call audible and move things indoors.  

“We've had some days where they couldn't go outside, and so we're in the gym, or once the gym started to get resurfaced, we couldn't do it at all,” Sandhop said. “That's just a preview of what could or will happen as soon as we start practices outside, and it makes it super difficult. It doesn't mean you can't get a practice in; it just means you can't get some of the things you want to get done, done, because you're limited by space and being indoors.” 

Despite the unpredictable nature of air quality in Eastern Washington, Sandhop and his fellow athletic directors feel confident navigating wildfire season due to their experience with it in past years.  

“All of us veteran ADs, we've lived it,” he said. “All of us will be amateur weathermen just like we are in the springtime with rain. The difference is with air quality; it can change within minutes, and so there's just really nothing you can do about it. We try to keep an eye on it.” 

Like Sandhop, most athletic directors track the air quality through resources like AirNow, Washington Smoke Blog Spot, AQICN which is a tool they can use from the Department of Ecology, he said.  

For instance, AirNow uses a spectrum ranging from zero to over 300 to track its air quality index. In a previous article by the Columbia Basin Herald, these measurements were broken down into four groups.  

Anything from zero to 50 AQI is safe to play in and holds no restrictions. 51-100 AQI is considered moderate air quality, where coaches should allow children with health conditions to opt out of physical activity.   

AQI that ranges from 101-150 states that coaches should modify their practice’s intensity for children with health conditions or cancel the sporting event. Any AQI measurement that is 151 or higher requires athletic programs to cancel their events if they are outdoors. 

“You try to get as much information as you can,” Sandhop said. “It's one thing to say, ‘Hey, we're going to start practice inside, and if it gets better, we'll go out.’ It's totally something different on game day when you know somebody's traveling from Yakima, and it's a two-hour bus ride, and you're trying to make a decision because it's been better in the morning, but as the afternoon progresses, it's kind of gotten worse sometimes. Sometimes you're looking at that and trying to make a prediction, and it's hard.” 

Despite an early start to wildfire season, Sandhop said he does not anticipate any delays to the start of fall sports. 

“It's more of an Eastern Washington thing than Western Washington,” he said.  

He also noted the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association has provided athletic directors with several resources they can rely on to make sound decisions regarding AQI throughout the fall.  

“You're really trying to look out for the safety and well-being of the kids,” he said. “Even if it's in the sensitive area, well, we have kids who are playing on our teams that have asthma, and they might be restricted, and we've got different protocols for how we modify drills or allow them to step out of a drill.” 

Similar care is taken for heat risks, Sandhop said. They use a gradient scale which factors temperature and humidity to set practice length and intensity.  

While outdoor sports like football, girls soccer and cross country are more directly impacted, volleyball could be as well when athletes from other sports have to move inside and space becomes crowded. 

“It's a huge impact if you do have those teams that are normally outside trying to come inside,” he said. “Now you've got gym space and availability for practices because for every team, the state dictates to us how many practices a kid has to have before they can play their first game.” 

Even when navigating the unpredictable nature of weather in Washington, Sandhop is happy to have the right people helping him in the Mavericks athletics program.  

“Fortunately for us, we have a couple of trainers that help me monitor it," he said. "Our coaches are trained in it, so every coach has to take a not only sudden cardiac arrest, but heat awareness as well as thinking about the health and safety of kids."