Saskatchewan Roughriders’ fans who went to the Mosaic Stadium of Regina on Friday had a difficult night, sitting through delays rounds and, ultimately, the game postponement More than three hours after the scheduled start time.
While the runners postponed, other sports in Saskatchewan played, despite the fact that much of the province was covered with smoke from forest fires last weekend.
Experts say that there is no unique rule to make decisions to postpone or cancel sporting events due to air quality, and specific leagues have different health patterns.
“Different sports require different amounts of snort, swelling and exposure time,” said Madeline Orr, a professor of sports ecology at the University of Toronto, whose research focuses on how climate change affects sports.
“Depending on sport, depending on the exposure time, depending on the age of people, all these are factors that should be considered. There is no standard policy,” said Orr.
She said that the Canadian Soccer League has air pollution guidelines, but has no rules.
The sport must stop as soon as the air becomes insecure for people with sensitive conditions and the smoke of forest fires is particularly dangerous, said Orr.
With several available air quality indices, already measure that the smoke of forest fires becomes an increasingly common health risk, this is what often enters the decision to play or not, and how to make sense of air quality rates when making their own decisions.
What is the ‘Air Quality Health Index?
He Air quality health index (AQHI) It is directed by the environment and climate change in Canada (ECCC) and is widely used throughout the country. It is intended to qualify the health risk of three types of hazardous pollutants in the air on a scale of one to 10: the higher the number, the more the risk will be.
“Help people make a trial call around the air quality they breathe,” said Céline Audette, health and air quality forecast services manager in ECCC.
Any qualification of five or more means people at risk and those with pre -existing conditions should consider going inside, he said. At seven, the general population should take precautions. At 10 years, everyone is at risk and exposure could cause health effects, Audette said.
While other air quality indices measure the concentration of specific pollutants in the air, AQHI is based on the estimation of epidemiologists of “the probable impact of that level of pollution in the population,” said Amir Hakami, a professor of Environmental Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Work on air quality models similar to those that ECCC uses to create AQHI.
The National Air Pollution Surveillance Program of ECCC uses more than 130 stations throughout Canada to measure air pollutants every hour. A model is then used to predict what the air quality and the corresponding health rating would be in the areas that are not being tested.
Why different indices can have different numbers
Experts say that even a few meters can make a measurable difference in air quality safety, due to things such as air flow and pollutant sources. For example, if you are immediately stopped next to the escape of a car, the air will be very different from whether it was standing a few meters in the wind.
There are also different formulas to measure air quality. If you see a scale that goes to more than 10, it is likely to be a traditional air quality index that measures the specific level of pollutants.
The United States mainly uses a scale of one to 500, applying a color code to mean health risks. Canada calculates the health risk differently, focusing on categories of slightly different pollutants.
“Air quality indices used in states are generally based on regulations” and not necessarily “health impacts,” Audette said. She said the Canada index uses “the best science available.”
The smoke of the forest fire caused changes in Eccc in 2024
Forest fires create particles in the air that are so small that they can only be seen with a microscope and are easily inhaled. The smoke falls into a category of pollutants called PM2.5, or fine particles that measures less than 2.5 micrometers.
“You can breathe it, you can settle in your lungs and even cross the cell level and enter your brain,” Audette said. “This particle is toxic in any concentration.”
She said that the smoke of forest fires requires you to act quickly. The stations throughout Canada began to measure air quality every hour in 2024 due to forest fires. Previously, the tests were performed every three hours.
The softball tournament continued in Prince Albert
In Prince Albert, about 315 kilometers northwest of the Mosaic Stadium, the WBSC World Cup Tournament continued Friday night and during the weekend.
The co -chair of the tournament, Ian Litzenberger, said that the weather was excellent and that it was a “perfect weekend for the ball.”
Litzenberger said that when the smoke from forest fires began to arrive, the officials and the medical director at the scene used the Canada softball quality documentation and Saskball Saskatchewan to make a call about continuing. He said they used multiple air quality rates, including ECCC.
None of our air quality levels exceeded what the documentation recommended, said Litzenberger.
