Football season is less than two months away in Michigan. Right now, coaches cannot even get their players outside.

FootballScoop Director of Content and Comstock Park Head Coach Doug Samuels posted on X on Wednesday with a stark picture of what is happening across the state right now.

"Michigan coaches everywhere forced to cancel practice, workouts, 7v7s, team camps due to Canadian wildfires wreaking havoc on air quality," Samuels wrote on X. "This is real life."

That X post captures something that numbers alone cannot. These are not optional rest days. Coaches are looking at the sky and making the call that it is genuinely not safe to put young athletes outside, and they are right to do so.

As smoke from Canadian wildfires travels down to the Lower Peninsula and Metro Detroit, Michigan will have a statewide air quality alert for Wednesday and Thursday.

Roughly 205,000 acres have burned in Ontario this year, though wildfire expert Mike Flannigan of Thompson Rivers University told Planet Detroit the actual figure is likely closer to one million acres.

“How much smoke you see will depend on the wind direction,” Mike said, per The Planet Detroit.

The air quality index near Marquette in the Upper Peninsula hit 955 on Wednesday night. The EPA's own scale identifies anything above 300 as hazardous. Parts of the northern Lower Peninsula were registering above 700 on private monitors.

Metro Detroit is dealing with a heat wave on top of all of this. A maximum heat index of 107 degrees Fahrenheit is expected in Detroit on Wednesday, per the National Weather Service. That combination of smoke and extreme heat is particularly dangerous for outdoor athletes.

EGLE meteorologist Jim Haywood said a weather front moving through Wednesday could drag even more smoke into southern Michigan, and there is a real chance the alert will extend into Friday.

Michigan coaches have no timeline for when outdoor activities can safely resume.

The health risk is real and significant for everyone

Wildfire smoke is made up of tiny particles called PM2.5 that are 30 times smaller than a human hair. They get into the lungs and move into the bloodstream, which puts people with respiratory conditions at serious risk.

As per the same Planet Detroit article, Chelsea Hospital nurse Kindra Weid said that older adults, children, outdoor workers, and people with conditions like asthma, heart disease, and COPD are the most vulnerable.

She also pointed out that the heat and smoke are not separate problems.

"Someone who's already fighting a foodborne illness is going to be dehydrated and at a greater risk for the impacts of the heat," Weid said, per Planet Detroit.

Athletes training in summer conditions fit that profile. Intense workouts cause dehydration. Dehydration amplifies heat risk. Smoke makes every breath harder. All three at once is not a situation any coach should put a player in.

EGLE is recommending that everyone stay inside, run air systems on recirculate, and wear N-95 masks when going outdoors.

Do you think Michigan football programmes should push back their fall camp start dates if the air quality does not improve in time? Let us know in the comments.

Read more at the Michigan Football Community

Written by

Farheen Fathima

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi