Mexican smoke wafts further into state
By MARK BABINECK / Associated Press Writer
Texas (AP)

-- There's no end in sight for the intensifying blanket of smoke that wafted farther over Texas on Thursday, irritating eyes, canceling activities and leaving millions longing for sunshine.

For more than a week, smoke has been flowing up the Gulf Coast from fires raging in southern Mexico and Central America. States all along the Gulf of Mexico have been sheathed in a gloomy fog. A health warning issued to more than 50 Texas counties that was to have expired Friday has been extended to Monday. Anyone within 100 miles of the coast who suffers from respiratory problems is urged to cut back on physical activity and to stay indoors.

The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission also has issued a health "watch" to the four-fifths of the state east of the Pecos River urging people to use caution while outdoors. "We're really not expecting anything to happen to wash it out," said National Weather Service meteorologist Krista Villarreal in Fort Worth. A high pressure system sitting over the region should keep the muck in place in the coming days, she said. Radar showed the whitish smoke fouling air in parts of the state far from the coast, where air is usually pristine. Only the very far western and northern reaches of Texas were immune from the billowing, Ms. Villarreal said.

Thick smoke also wasn't limited to the coast. CareFlight medical helicopters in North Texas were grounded Thursday morning because of haze-related visibility problems, forcing paramedics to take patients to hospitals by ambulance or airplane. Chief pilot Joe Tate of the company's Grand Prairie office said five flights were cancelled. "In the wintertime, we may have fog or low visibility because clouds," he said. "For something this significant or this long-lasting, this is a first."

U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm is urging President Clinton to deploy firefighting help south of the border. "It seems clear that the governments of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras are simply incapable of combatting these huge blazes," the Republican wrote in a letter faxed to the media. "I believe it is in our best interest to offer all the help we can muster, and the sooner the better."

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was among lawmakers urging EPA Administrator Carol Browner not to count the imported smoke problems against the state's ability to meet federal clean air standards. "I saw the heavy smoke first hand in Houston over Mother's Day weekend. It was the worst I've seen in the area where I grew up and spent the first 30 years of my life," said Ms. Hutchison, who was raised amid the chemical plants south of town.

By mid-Thursday, Mexican smoke was affecting Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, southern and central Missouri and western and central Mississippi, said Tim Destri, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. University Interscholastic League spokeswoman Rachel Seewald said that high school baseball and softball playoff games in the Houston area were being postponed and possibly canceled because of the air-related health alert.

Dozens of coastal school districts are canceling field trips and sporting events while keeping students indoors during the alert. The skylines of most of the state's major cities are shrouded from more than three miles away. But it's worst in Galveston and other coastal cities, where the smoky canopy left cool, shaded beaches underneath. "We've had guests that were checking out because of the smoke," said Karen J. Allen, executive assistant at the city's 87-year-old Hotel Galvez, which recently underwent a multimillion-dollar restoration. "We're finally about finished with that, and now this."

Farmers clearing land for planting in January started some of the more than 9,000 fires burning along the border between Mexico and Central America. Other blazes have been blamed on arsonists. Smoke from the fires has also been reported on both the east and west coasts, in  California and in Florida.

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