Smoke from California forest fire visible inside Kings' arena

A northern California county has been hit with a deadly wildfire, and it's become a potential concern for the nearby Sacramento Kings.

The forest fire - dubbed "Camp Fire" - began on Thursday in Butte County, and it's pushing smoke south toward California's capital city. It's reached Sacramento's downtown core, and the Kings' Golden 1 Center became visibly cloudy inside.

"Not to sound dumb, but this kind of snuck up on everybody," Kings coach Dave Joerger said, according to ESPN's Dave McMenamin. "From wherever you're coming in from (you notice the smoke). Today I immediately started calling our staff: 'How bad is it downtown? What's going on here?' It's just a really sad deal."

Prior to Sacramento's game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, arena workers were told to keep the doors closed as much as possible to minimize the smoke seeping through.

However, Lakers star LeBron James was concerned during L.A.'s morning shootaround.

"You can smell it," said James. "We haven't really gotten up and down (running) like that to the point where you can tell it affects you or not but anytime smoke is around, you know it can affect all of us. Not only us as athletes but everyone. Everyone gets affected by pollution."

Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma added: "Breathing, it's a little bit muggier. You can kind of feel that from the jump."