High school outdoor activites canceled throughout region

All outdoor games and practices were canceled by high schools throughout the Inland Northwest on Tuesday.

How soon football and girls soccer teams may resume outdoor practices and games is anyone’s guess at this time, Mead athletic director John Barrington said.

Barrington said the air quality index recorded on the Spokane Regional Clean Air website was 253 at 9 a.m. Tuesday. That’s in the very unhealthy range.

GSL has a league wide agreement that no outdoor activities will take place if the air quality index is more than 150, Barrington said.

“They’re saying the poor air is going to last at least through Thursday,” Barrington said.

Mead and Mt. Spokane each have fieldhouses for their football and girls soccer teams to use for practice. Central Valley and University have auxiliary gyms to accommodate indoor practices, too.

No football games are scheduled in the region on Thursday. But there are soccer matches each day.

Smoke from wildfires created a similar issue the first week of school two years ago. North Idaho schools scrambled to reschedule games and ended up moving games to the Kibbie Dome in Moscow.