Parents look for indoor activities to keep kids out of unhealthy air

CONCORD, Calif. (KTVU) - As health officials warned to stay indoors due to poor air quality from the Camp Fire in Butte County, parents and children chose to spend the day participating in indoor activities.

The hazy sun in the East Bay silhouetted trees and shrouded Mt. Diablo on Monday. The fire has pushed out not only smoke, but evacuees. Carly Wolf said her family’s house burned down in Paradise. She is staying at her in-laws in Concord.

“Yesterday when my daughter was crying and I said, ‘What's wrong?’ She said, 'go home mommy' and she's two. I said we can't go home, so that was really hard,” Wolf said.

Wolf brought her daughters to Sky High Sports in Concord to seek a little release and shelter from the poor air quality.

The indoor trampoline park was sold out for time slots from the morning to the afternoon. There was no shortage of energetic kids on trampolines or in the foam pit.

Jenn Hammond, office manager for Sky High Sports in Concord, said there was a line of people waiting outside the building before they opened for the day.

“Today's been pretty hectic,” Hammond said. “It's a school holiday. All of our schools are out in this district and the air quality has been pretty bad. All weekend it's been pretty packed, but particularly today it's been pretty slammed.”

Parents said they’re concerned about the long term effects of the air quality because it seems there is no end in sight.

“They're little so any chance at all that it's not good, I just want to keep them out of it,” Heidi Sansome, a mother of two boys, said.

A spokesman for Contra Costa Health Services advised parents to limit outdoor activities for children as much as possible, especially for those with asthma and noted that masks are designed for adults, not kids.