No. California Schools Close Due to Smoke in the Air from Camp Fire
The air quality in the Bay Area has been deemed unhealthy from smoke and the majority of schools have closed until it is safe for students.
The Camp Fire was first reported on Nov. 8 and has still not been fully contained.
Bay Area public schools and a hand-full of universities plan to close Friday because of the smoke-filled air from the Camp Fire, which started on Nov. 8 in Northern California.
All public K-12 schools in Alameda County and San Francisco will shut their doors on Friday, reports NBC.
“The safety of students and staff is paramount and the poor air quality conditions throughout the Bay Area made this necessary step,” said L. Karen Monoe, superintendent of Alameda County schools.
The Camp Fire is the deadliest and most destructive fire in the state’s history.
San Francisco State, San Jose State, and Santa Clara universities announced they were shutting down classes from Thursday through the weekend.
According to the Air Quality Management District (AQMD), air monitors registered high levels of particulate matter in the Bay Area. This unhealthy air could cause breathing problems for children, especially if they are asthmatic.
Kristine Roselius, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area AQMD says offshore winds helped “bring the smoke right in.” She is hopeful that a wind shift will clear the air.
As of Thursday afternoon, the Camp Fire torched 140,000 acres, killed 56 and destroyed 8,650 homes.
Here is a full list of Bay Area schools that closed.
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About the Author
Katie Malafronte, Web Editor
Katie Malafronte is Campus Safety's Web Editor. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2017 with a Bachelor's Degree in Communication Studies and a minor in Writing & Rhetoric. Katie has been CS's Web Editor since 2018.
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The myth that occupants are safer indoors at school is a myth. HVAC design in schools necessitate the incorporation of outside air at significant rates to ventilate with the cleaner outside air. However, this totally turns dangerous when we have outside air conditions that are unsafe. The ignorance surrounding the handling of decisions regarding children during a crisis like we currently have is appalling. There are very few places that are safe, which include possibly libraries, museums, homes, and any space that has 100% of the air circulation through carbon banks AND hepa filtration able filter out the smallest particles and the products of combustion from rubber and plastics, etc. Exception to that treatment of air would be the use of respirator masks with the same capability. Certainly not dust masks that are only effective for relatively large particulate. To their credit many schools in the Bay Area closed both Thursday and Friday. The rest should be subject to law suits unless they can demonstrate that they were able to adequately filter out the smoke, which they can’t. All businesses are in the same predicament, but attendance there is at the employee’s risk. Same for any public venue with the exception of government run operations that are able to require restrictions during emergencies. Consequently the government is also open to suit when the safety of citizens is at risk, especially when it is highly likely that failure to act when closing schools for the safety of children is necessary, instead of making statements that children are being kept inside a ventilated school to avoid the danger of being outside. And if the claim is made that the school is not ventilated, then it is very easy to get a forensic researcher in there and expose the non ventilation myth. WE have a problem here an ignorance reigns as usual.