SALEM — When the Pole Creek Fire raged through the Three Sisters Wilderness Area last month, the hallways in the local schools were filled with a haze.

“It looked like the ocean on a foggy day,” said Sisters School District Superintendent Jim Golden. “I couldn’t see across the street.”

The absenteeism rate spiked at Sisters High School. The number of students who called in sick more than doubled from the school’s average, from less than 5 percent of students to 12 percent.

“The eyes were itchy and you felt lethargic, and some people had worse symptoms than others…. If you had asthma, it was not the place to be,” said Principal Joe Hosang.

This is what Julie and Benny Benson noticed when they spent time at their daughter’s school. The Sisters residents co-own ENERGY-neering Solutions and are engineers. The couple opened up their checkbooks, enlisted the help of their employees and helped the district install hospital-grade air filters.

The tab went up to about $10,000. But the filters worked.

“The normal filters you put in the system won’t stop the particulate matter down as low as you need to go,” said Leland Bliss, director of operations for the district.

Although it’s not normal for smoke to fill the hallways to the extent it did, it’s not unusual for smoke to be a concern, Bliss said.

The U.S. Forest Service often burns the debris on the forest floor in the winter.

And when that happens, “a lot of times we’ll get an inversion and it will get smoky,” Bliss said.

The Bensons have started what they coined “Clean Air for Kids” with the hopes that funds collected can go toward the costs of the filters and any future filters.

Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles, plans to get the state involved. He hopes to request funds — the amount hasn’t been determined — to help cover the costs.

“We put in a placeholder request … to see if we can get money so the kids can go to school and actually breathe while they are there,” Huffman said.