Wildfire smoke could impact Long Island camp, sending kids indoors if air quality reaches unhealthy level
USDAN Summer Camp for the Arts will remain open on Thursday. Credit: Morgan Campbell/Morgan Campbell
Long Island camp directors are prepared to modify activities or move children indoors in the event of spikes in the air quality index, just as they do on days when there is a heat advisory or thunderstorm, Ross Coleman, the president of the Long Island Camps and Private Schools Association, said Wednesday.
The state predicts that smoke from Canadian wildfires will bring the air quality index above 100 on the Island on Thursday, meaning that it's considered unhealthy for "sensitive groups," such as those with asthma or other cardiovascular conditions.
Some camps without enough indoor space to accommodate their entire population, such as the Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts in Wheatley Heights, weighed canceling on Thursday in anticipation of Long Island's worsening air quality, though executive director Lauren Brandt Schloss told the community that the camp would remain open "after careful consideration."
Peconic Dunes 4-H Camp, a sleepaway camp in Southold, would have considered sending kids home a day early from their Sunday through Friday program had the numbers gone higher, said Vanessa Lockel, executive director of the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. They didn’t have to make that call.
About 30 Long Island camp directors met on a Zoom call Tuesday night to assess the situation and discuss best practices, said Coleman, who is also owner of Coleman Country Day Camp in Merrick. “Whatever comes our way, we’ll be prepared, and we’ll do what we do as camp directors. We’ll modify our programming and make sure we’re keeping our kids safe,” Coleman said.
Camps actually saw four days last summer when the air quality index was between 100 and 150, the level officials currently expect for Thursday, according to Coleman.
“Everybody is very prepared,” Coleman said. “Each summer, we have heat advisories for 90 to 95 degrees, we have thunderstorms, we had a solar eclipse a few summers back."
In those situations, camps move the children inside or limit rigorous outdoor activities. Coleman said his camp also had air filtration systems installed indoors during the pandemic, and those will help as well if needed.
At Park Shore Country Day Camp in Dix Hills, camp is ready with a rainy day schedule and plans to take older campers on indoor field trips to bowling alleys or movie theaters, said Bob Budah, co-owner of Park Shore as well as Extreme Steam Science Kids in Deer Park.
Camp directors noted the irony that in past summers during the pandemic, the goal was to keep everyone outdoors to keep campers healthy, and this summer there may be a need to keep campers inside at times.
“If it’s not COVID, it’s smoke,” Budah said.
Echoed Usdan's Brandt Schloss, “It’s just such a strange twist of events.”
With Lisa L. Colangelo
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
