ALLISON RUPP Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 12:00 am
As the fire on Casper Mountain increased in severity Tuesday, the Casper-Natrona County Health Department urged people to stay inside, especially if they had a chronic respiratory disease, such as asthma, bronchitis or emphysema, or a chronic heart condition.
Martin Thone, spokesman for the health department, encouraged people to refrain from physical activity if they were going to be outside, because the particles from wildfires are small and can be very irritating to the body.
"It is not a good day to be jogging even if you are an exercise buff," Thone said. "If you go jogging today, it's like smoking a pack of cigarettes."
Besides staying inside, Thone said people should close all windows and keep doors closed. They should run their air conditioners but keep the fresh air intake closed and the filter clean.
Karen Kidd, a nurse at the Allergy & Asthma Clinic of Wyoming, said this is very important for people with respiratory problems. As of Tuesday morning, no one had called her clinic complaining of the smoke, but she advised the patients who came in for routine allergy shots to wear bandanas or some type of mask to protect themselves if they went outdoors.
She said people with asthma or emphysema might need breathing treatments this week that they do not normally need.
"It could really start to effect them," Kidd said. "We will probably be very busy the rest of the week."
The elderly and young children also may be more sensitive to breathing the wildfire smoke. That is why day care centers had to find indoor activities for children to do Tuesday and nursing homes tried to keep their residents from having to go outdoors.
Karen Rickman, executive assistant at Nutrition and Child Development Inc., said the children at its two child care centers in Casper have 30 minutes of outside play time everyday. She also said that on certain days of the week there are other activities planned for the outdoors.
But Tuesday the children got to play with the parachute inside.
Rickman said she heard warnings on the radio Tuesday morning that said to keep children indoors because of the fire.
"I made a call first thing in the morning to the centers to keep them inside," Rickman said. "Me, just leaving my house this morning, my eyes were burning and I'm from California. I'm used to the smoke and pollution."
Heather Dronek, administrator at Garden Square Assisted Living of Casper, said that outside her facility the smell was pretty bad and there was a lot of ash falling.
Earlier Tuesday, her staff went door-to-door making sure every resident had their windows closed, and she said the smell of the fire had not made it inside the facility, which is located on South Beverly Street.
She said there is a large sitting area outside where many residents congregate. No one was allowed to sit out there Tuesday.
"Families are being really good," Dronek said. "They're not coming and taking their loved ones out to lunch or somewhere else. We have a lot of people who come and go, but they are all staying inside today."
As of Tuesday afternoon, the emergency room at the Wyoming Medical Center had only seen a couple of people who complained of respiratory problems because of the smoke.
However, the hospital went on "Code Orange" alert about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday to prepare for the possibility of the situation worsening.
Mike Phillips, spokesman for the hospital, said the hospital calls this emergency response when there is an external disaster that might require more than the hospital's normal resources.
"It is to make sure we have adequate staff," Phillips said. "We have called our staff to make sure they are available and put them on alert."
The hospital had not called in extra staff Tuesday, and Phillips said it had been a normal day for the hospital.
However, the hospital did have to cover the absences of several staff members who had to evacuate their homes because of the fire. The only service the hospital canceled for today was cardiac rehabilitation, which Phillips described as an exercise program for people who have had heart surgery. He said the cancellation was a precaution in case things got busier today.
The last time the hospital was on "Code Orange" alert was this spring, but this is the first time it has been called for a fire.
Follow the Blaze Blog for up-to-date news on the fire.