ToClearSkies
The smoke report

Reading the air, out loud.

Field notes on wildfire smoke, PM2.5, and the small decisions that keep you and the people you love breathing easier. Honest about the numbers, blunt about the risk, and never pretending the sky is fine when it isn't.

Start here

The basics

New to smoke season, these stay pinned at the top: what the number on your phone is, what it's made of, who it hurts first, and the two moves that matter — clean one room, or get out for a week.

  1. Thick orange wildfire-smoke haze blurring a city skyline, seen through a window.01

    What Your AQI Number Actually Means

    The scary number on your phone, decoded — six color bands, what each one means for your lungs, and the exact point where you should stop going outside.

    6 min read
  2. A large curved human hair strand next to clusters of small dots representing airborne particles, alongside a simplified lung with branching airways containing dots.02

    What PM2.5 Actually Is

    The particle behind every wildfire-smoke number, explained from scratch — how small it is, where it comes from, and why its size drives both lung and heart risk.

    6 min read
  3. Five family members indoors during dense outdoor smoke: an adult holding a baby, a pregnant adult, an older adult, a child, and an adult holding an inhaler, with a portable air cleaner standing beside them.03

    The Same Smoke Doesn't Cost Everyone the Same

    Children, older adults, pregnant people, anyone with asthma, COPD, heart disease, or diabetes, and outdoor workers all pay a steeper price for the same AQI reading — here's why, and the exact point each group should act.

    7 min read
  4. Cutaway view of a bedroom with a closed window and door, a towel placed at the door gap, a portable air cleaner circulating blue-tinted air, and dense smoke surrounding houses outside.04

    Forget the Whole House. Seal One Room.

    Filtering an entire home is expensive and often impossible. Sealing and filtering one room — the move the EPA actually recommends — clears the air where you sleep for the price of a box fan.

    6 min read
  5. Three pictorial panels showing dense smoke, wind moving a smoke plume, and a clearer blue sky, with a person comparing them against an unlabeled regional smoke map.05

    How to Read a Smoke Forecast — And When It Means Leave

    Forecasts predict smoke; monitors measure it. Here's how AirNow, NOAA's HRRR-Smoke, and satellite maps actually work — and the one signal in a multi-day outlook that means it's time to drive to cleaner air.

    7 min read
  6. View through a car windshield toward a clear coastal road, a smoky city receding in the side mirror, and roadside particle symbols contrasting smoky and cleaner air.06

    What a Week in Cleaner Air Changes (and What It Doesn't Prove)

    Leaving smoke lowers your measured PM2.5 exposure while you're away. No study has tested whether that changes a health outcome. Here's the exposure math and a four-factor way to decide.

    5 min read
Source by source

The Evidence Desk

We separate what studies measured from what models predict, grade the confidence, and show where the evidence stops before making the practical call.

  1. Generated editorial illustration showing wildfire smoke entering a bedroom and passing through a portable air cleaner into a cleaner blue-air zone.01Moderate

    Do Air Purifiers Work for Wildfire Smoke?

    What's measured, what's modeled, and what remains untested about wildfire smoke filtration.

    5 sources · 6 min read
  2. Generated editorial cutaway comparing heavy smoke infiltration in an older cracked house with lower but nonzero infiltration in a newer filtered house.02Moderate

    How Much Wildfire Smoke Gets Indoors

    Indoor PM2.5 during smoke events depends on your building, not a fixed percentage.

    5 sources · 6 min read
  3. Generated editorial comparison of wildfire particles and traffic pollution moving toward a pair of lungs, with visibly different particle shapes but equal mass.03Moderate

    Is Wildfire Smoke Worse Than Other PM2.5?

    Wildfire and traffic PM2.5 can show the same monitor reading. Evidence suggests they do not cause identical harm, but no study provides a universal multiplier.

    6 sources · 6 min read
  4. Generated editorial side profile of an adult in a head-strap respirator, showing smoke stopped at the filter and some leakage around an imperfect cheek seal.04Moderate

    Do N95 Respirators Protect Against Wildfire Smoke?

    A NIOSH-approved N95 meets a filtration standard. What you breathe depends on fit, leakage, wear time, and evidence that is still mostly indirect.

    6 sources · 6 min read
  5. Generated editorial illustration of a road from a smoke-covered city toward clear blue air, with an evidence chain stopping before a medical-outcome symbol.05Preliminary

    Does Leaving Wildfire Smoke for a Week Help? What the Evidence Shows

    Short pollution reductions shift some biomarkers within days. No study has tested whether a week away from wildfire smoke prevents a clinical event.

    5 sources · 5 min read
Newest first

The latest

Cel-poster forecast illustration of ochre wildfire smoke plumes poised over North America, with clean blue edges and no labels or text.Wildfire season
Forecast check · July 2026

Will the Bad Air Come Back to Haunt Canada and the US?

The official outlooks and the forecasters agree: elevated fire potential through September, smoke episodes into August — and some fires may burn until the October snows.

July 24, 2026 · 5 min readRead it →