How smoky does it get at my BC property?

What the answer means

What is counted

Fine particulate matter, PM2.5: particles small enough to reach deep into the lungs, and most of what makes wildfire smoke harmful. A day counts when its 24-hour average at the station was over 25 µg/m³, the level of BC's Ambient Air Quality Objective for fine particles, with 18 or more hours read. The Province judges the objective itself on a year's 98th percentile of daily averages; a count of days says more about how often smoke comes.

Smoke or wood stoves

Summer days over the objective are mostly wildfire smoke. In some valley towns, winter days are too: wood stoves and traffic held under still, cold air. The report says when most of a station's days fall in summer or in winter, as our reading.

Which station

A report and a place's page take the nearest station with five or more years of full readings within 30 km. Smoke drifts unevenly, so a lot up a side valley or across a lake can be clearer or smokier than the station.

Years vary a lot

A station can go years with almost no smoke days and then have a month of them: 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023 were heavy smoke years across much of BC. The median says what a usual year is like, and the worst year what a bad one can be.

On a smoky day

BC's air quality advisories and the Air Quality Health Index say what the air is like now. A portable HEPA air cleaner in a closed room, or a ventilation system with a good filter that can recirculate, keeps the air inside cleaner.

These are a station's days, counted by us from the Province's verified readings, not readings at the lot. Confirm with the regional health authority or BC's air quality team, and for a home's air, a ventilation contractor before you buy or build.

Source: Air Quality and Climate Monitoring: Verified Hourly Air Quality and Meteorological Data (fine particulate matter, PM2.5), BC Ministry of Environment and Parks (Open Government Licence – British Columbia); Air quality objectives and standards, Province of BC (the 25 µg/m³ 24-hour objective, read 2026-10-11).

By place

175 of BC's 319 places have an air monitoring station measuring fine particles within 30 km, 54 stations in all. Stations ran over different years and some sit in a valley bottom, others on a bench, so places are listed by name, not ranked.

The other 144 places have no station with 5 or more full years of readings within 30 km. Distances are from the town centre (in an electoral area, its main settled place). Counted by us from the Province's verified hourly readings, 2015 to 2025.