For the past few weeks, the sky has been red and polluted with smoke. California has been plagued with forest fires, the root cause for the smoke. Last Friday, our air quality reached 243 on the Air Quality Index (AQI), which is very unhealthy. Here’s what a few of our students had to say:
“The fires have affected me healthwise because I have asthma. It affects me so much that I don’t want to come to school because it’s bad air quality.”
-Ofelia Hernandez, junior
“Personally, being from the Rez, it’s a lot smokier and the roads are more dangerous. I do come on the bus every single day, and there’s a lot more concentration that goes into driving because kids don’t know how to act right. Normally, you have pretty blue skies and now there’s so much smoke that makes it look post-apocalyptic. It’s really heartbreaking, and it reached our Redwoods Wednesday, but thankfully, the fire began to go southeast. We don’t think it’ll reach the containment, but if it does, we’ll have to be evacuated. “
-Lily Garfield, senior
“They haven’t really affected me, only the smell and air quality.”
-Ricado Moreno, freshman
“For someone who has allergy problems and regular breathing problems, it’s really annoying because it gives me headaches. I have family members who are firefighters and really young, you never know what’s going to happen.”
-Ele Franklin, sophomore
Today, the air quality is good and the weather is cooler, but the forecast doesn’t look good for the rest of the week as the temperature is supposed to be back in the 90s by Friday and the air quality is supposed to get bad again.