With poor air quality, Utahns advised to limit outdoor time to mornings, evenings

“You can see the mountain on either side, that’s never a good sign,” Johnson said. He also needs his kids to burn off some energy, after all, it’s still summer break. “It’s hard to stay inside the house all the time.”

Chopper 5 flew above the Salt Lake Valley, where the skies were anything but clear. Bryce Bird with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality says wildfires raging across the West Coast of the United States are part of the air quality problem. The other is ozone.

“We are exceeding the federal standard for ozone on most afternoons during these conditions,” Bird said. And, he said the smoke has the same particulate matter that we see in the winter months during the “inversion.”

Study: Wildfire smoke may be worse for your brain than other air pollution

For now, Bird said those in sensitive groups should limit their time outdoors, and everyone should try to limit their time to morning and evening, when pollution levels are at their lowest.

Johnson said he and his family feel fine so far and his hope is the time outdoors is better than not being active.

“I like to think that the benefits of exercise cancel out the potential negative health effects of exercising in the smoke.”