CLEVELAND (WJW) – The smoke from the hundreds of wildfires in Canada is impacting travel and pregame activities before the Cleveland Guardians game Thursday night.

According to the Guardians, “All player pregame activities will be held inside and arrival has been pushed back.”

The decision came from a combination of factors, including the air quality issues tied to the fires.

“We’ve been trying to pick a day to get our guys off their feet this week with all the night games and the current conditions factored into the decision,” said Bart Swain, Director of Baseball Information and Player Relations.

Northeast Ohio has been under an air quality advisory due to the fires and blanket of hazy smoke moving in from Canada.

Doctors have been recommending the young, elderly and anyone with respiratory issues like asthma and COPD stay inside and/or limit outdoor activities right now.

The smoke has become an issue for parts of the Midwest and almost all of the Northeast.  New York has been experiencing significant smoke and smog that led to many airport delays and cancellations.

On Wednesday the FAA issued a temporary ground stop to LaGuardia due to the low visibility issues.

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport was still also seeing some flights impacted.

Flights into Newark, Laguardia and Toronto were delayed.

“If an airport needs to go into ground stop or ground delay it can impact other departure locations so we are monitoring like we would monitor a normal weather event,” said Dejan Radosavljevic, Assistant Commissioner of Airport Operations 

Radosavljevic suggests travelers check with the airport’s website and their airline frequently over the next couple of days before heading to the airport.

 “Could cancellations occur, we’re not sure, it really depends on what the winds are going to do with the smoke and where the low visibility will occur,” he said, “We just encourage people to pay attention to their flight, so they’re not stuck at the airport.”

Leah Jackson was at the airport with a group of tenth and eleventh graders from Hathaway Brown in Shaker Heights heading to Zambia for a two-week exchange program when their first leg to Newark was delayed due to the smoke. 

“It’s certainly concerning just trying to coordinate a trip with this many people this many different factors in play is probably making our nerves a little uneasy but you know we’re just gonna hope everything works out,” said Jackson.