Heat waves, smoke clouds and the battle to breathe easy in Minnesota

There's hot yoga, and then there's too-hot-for yoga.

For a year and a half, the staff of the YWCA Minneapolis worked around and through the pandemic's threat to public health. When they checked this week's forecast, they saw more danger ahead.

As the heat index soared toward triple digits, they pulled the plug on Tuesday evening's free community yoga class in Peavey Plaza, across the street from the downtown Y.

"Our best advice to folks is to always listen to their bodies," said Tara Davenport, group fitness coordinator for the YWCA's Uptown and downtown facilities.

Our bodies are choking on Canadian wildfire smoke, roasting through heat waves, then choking on wildfire smoke again.

The climate is changing, and not for the better. Activities that moved outdoors because of the pandemic are being driven back indoors, away from the stifling, sulfurous air that stings the eyes and makes outdoor work and workouts a misery for even the healthiest lungs.

Some days, even a move indoors is no guarantee of relief. Davenport listened to one of her instructors lead a Zoom fitness class for a group of seniors this week, some of whom live in homes with air conditioning, some without.

"I just heard her say, 'Take more breaks if you need it. Drink more water,' " she said. " 'Listen to your body.' "

And listen to the experts when they say that this week's air quality was some of the worst ever recorded.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency put almost the entire state under an air quality alert on Thursday, posting air quality maps painted in lurid shades of orange, red and purple. On Friday, they extended the air quality warning into next Tuesday.

The air around Brainerd registers an unwholesome shade of brown. Duluth is fire-alarm red. Red Lake sits in a bruised streak of purple reserved for very unhealthy air. Thick hazy air sat like a fog bank over the Twin Cities.

Hennepin County Emergency Management pleaded with residents to postpone backyard barbecues to avoid pumping any more particulates into the air.

"Do your part," the county pleaded in a tweet, "to keep our air healthy."

It's been hard to breathe easy in Minnesota.

For long-haul COVID survivors like Greg Beaudoin, days like this are insult on top of injury.

"It's hard to breathe. It is," said Beaudoin, who was working as a respiratory therapist in the COVID wards during the awful spring of 2020, when he fell ill himself.

Beaudoin spent 54 days on a ventilator, survived two strokes, and emerged with his lungs scarred but his spirit intact.

"I'm here talking to you," he said. "So here's to better things."

After a career spent helping others breathe easy, Beaudoin now feels his own lungs tighten when the air fills with particulates from fires burning 500 miles away. On bad air quality days, he takes precautions, limiting his time and activity outdoors.

"You notice right away it's not very nice out. You can feel it," he said. "It can be crippling. It can limit what you want to do. ... You have to be pretty careful."

There's nothing like a Minnesota winter to make you appreciate a warm, sunny Minnesota summer. Which makes bad air quality days — when smoke or pollen or pollution swirl — particularly cruel for Dr. Bryan Williams' patients.

"Some of my patients more or less restrict themselves to an indoor environment," said Williams, a pulmonary and critical care physician with M Health Fairview. "It's almost like the dead of winter when it's minus 20, when most of us don't want to be out there. That's what these bad days are like for some of our patients."

Those with reactive lung disease, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, adapt to the world on fire. They keep their medication close, alter their schedules and hope for clearer skies.

And at least once a clinic day, Williams said, he meets a patient with newly scarred lungs, adapting to life in the COVID long haul.

A year ago, there was no vaccine to protect Beaudoin from the virus that has killed and maimed so many Minnesotans. We have the vaccine now. It's everywhere. The corner drugstore. Your doctor's office. At the vaccination kiosk at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

If you haven't found your way to a vaccine vial yet, take a deep breath of hot, muggy Minnesota air with your unscarred lungs, then go get your shot.

Free community yoga, courtesy of YWCA Minneapolis, will return to Peavey Plaza on Tuesday, weather permitting.

jennifer.brooks@startribune.com 612-673-4008

Follow Jennifer on Twitter:

@stribrooks