BILLINGS — Smoke stuck around for another day over Billings, leading to unhealthy air quality for portions of Tuesday.
Health and environmental officials recommended early Tuesday that those who were sensitive to the smoky conditions limit their time outdoors, but that wasn't an option for a lot of workers in town.
As haze blanketed Billings, Broadwater Lawn Care owner David Carpenter couldn't let the smoky skies keep him inside.
“When there's work to be done, you still have to do the work,” Carpenter said on Tuesday. “It's harder to breathe, it's more uncomfortable, I guess the same way that it would impact anybody.”
At Sunrise Montessori, the administration opted to keep kids indoors for recess.
“It has been up in the dangerous zone all day,” director of Sunrise Montessori, Cailin Beeler, said. “We're concerned about all of our students and their breathing and conditions that we may not know about. We have several students who have asthma.”
Billings Clinic Pulmonary physician Dr. Robert Merchant said it's important to know the air quality.
“People with heart disease are also prone to air quality problems. And they're going to be prone to a little bit more chest pain, more heart failure type problems,” Merchant said. “Wearing a mask can make a big difference... It actually has to be one of the more protective masks, like an N95 mask or a KN95 mask. And those actually can make a significant difference.”
