Santa Cruz residents facing poor air quality from Camp Fire

With more smoke coming in Friday night from the Camp Fire in Northern California, residents on the Central Coast will have to brace for more bad air quality.

But after a smoke-filled day in Santa Cruz, people were happy to come out and enjoy the night even if things are not completely back to normal.

“I mean you can smell it out here and it kind of burns my eyes a little bit, but it’s not stopping anyone from coming in,” said Emmett Egan, a manager at Ideal Bar and Grill. “They’re ready for the three-day weekend, they still want to come to the beach.”

All the smoke from Camp Fire up north is coming down in full force, and we could potentially see more over the weekend.

“The winds certainly aren’t helping. We’re still in this northerly off-shore flow, north easterly flow,” said Dann Cianca, chief meteorologist for KION. “It turns out that the biggest fire in the state right now is off to our north, north east. So we are downwind of that fire, everything it’s putting out is heading in our direction.”

“Well, it’s the worst I’ve seen it and it’s the most wind I’ve seen in at least a year,” said Ryan Compton, a Santa Cruz resident.

Despite the smoke, Compton and his family still came out for a bicycling event Friday night, and a whole lot of people did too.

“People are still coming. People still want to eat outside, and I see people biking around and running around,” said Egan.

Santa Cruz County is putting out an air quality impact warning telling people to stay indoors if the smoke gets really bad. Exercise outside is especially discouraged.

“A lot of people doesn’t worry, they don’t care,” said Sonia Hernandez, who works at The Picnic Basket in Santa Cruz.

“I wouldn’t want to be running around in this, that’s terrible for your lungs,” said Egan.

“I don’t think I’m going to take it too hard today,” said Compton. “We’re just going to go on an easy bike, the air is cool and the ground is pretty flat. So it’s nice.”

CBS News says the Camp Fire has destroyed most of the town of Paradise. At least nine people have been killed.