Wildfire Smoke Season Is Back, Here's Everything Doctors Say You Need Beyond Just a Mask

Doctors say wildfire smoke drifting from Canada and across the American West is doing more damage to lungs, hearts and mental health than most people realize, and a mask alone won't fully protect you. Here's what actually helps, from checking your local air quality index to building a clean air space at home.

Wildfires are burning across Canada and the American West this summer, and doctors say the smoke drifting off those fires is doing more damage to public health than most people realize, making it one of the most underappreciated hazards of the season. The haze can travel hundreds of miles on the wind, carrying invisible particulate matter deep into cities that are nowhere near an active fire, and hospitals are already seeing the fallout, a jump in cardiac deaths and a surge in visits to lung specialists whenever a major smoke event rolls through during these summer months.

Why Wildfire Smoke Is More Dangerous Than It Looks
The deeper scientists look into wildfire particulates, the worse the picture gets. Many of the tiny particles carried in smoke are highly inflammatory, and they're small enough to slip out of the lungs and directly into the bloodstream, where they can circulate for weeks at a stretch. Particles smaller than 2.5 microns, known as PM 2.5, are especially concerning. At high concentrations they can stunt developing lungs, reduce fertility, damage mental health and the ability to concentrate, and raise the risk of conditions ranging from stroke to heart disease to lung cancer. That is a remarkably wide span of harm for particles too small to see with the naked eye, which is part of why researchers now treat a heavy smoke day with the same seriousness as a heat warning or a flood alert.

Heidi Huber-Stearns, director of the Center for Wildfire Smoke Research and Practice at the University of Oregon, said the danger is highest for people who are immunocompromised or living with asthma, but she stressed that even perfectly healthy kids aren't in the clear. "This is an issue for developing lungs, whether or not they seem to be visibly suffering or wheezy," Huber-Stearns said. "It doesn't have to be a kid who has other health issues. It's all kids."

The safest option during a hazardous air quality alert is simple, stay indoors near a good air purifier. But that's not realistic for everyone, whether because of work, housing or budget constraints. The steps below are aimed at protecting your lungs and your family's when the sky fills with health-damaging soot.

Check Your Local Air Quality Before You Step Outside
The first line of defense is information. Smoky, hazy skies have become a routine part of summer across the western United States, and increasingly in the Northeast too, as wildfires burning in Canada send plumes of eye-stinging haze down into some of the country's most densely populated corridors.

Airnow.gov, run jointly by several federal agencies, pulls together readings from thousands of air quality monitoring stations around the country, which means the index it shows updates close to real time rather than relying on a single distant reading. It is generally the fastest way to check conditions in a specific neighborhood, including forecasts for the days and weeks ahead. Entering a zip code brings up the local air quality index, along with a breakdown of which pollutants are driving it up. That kind of near-live, hyperlocal forecast becomes especially useful for households trying to plan around a smoke event that could stretch on for weeks.

As a general rule, once the air quality index climbs past 150, people considered more sensitive, including children, older adults, anyone with a lung condition, and the immunocompromised, should limit time outdoors and think about wearing an N95 respirator. Once the index crosses 200, shown in red on Airnow's map, that advice stops being optional for sensitive groups alone, everyone should mask up, stick to clean indoor spaces where possible, and avoid strenuous outdoor exercise altogether.

Turn One Room Into a Clean Air Refuge
For households that can afford it, a good air purifier is the single most effective way to strip dangerous particulates out of indoor air. But covering an entire home in purifiers isn't within reach for most families, so Huber-Stearns suggests a more realistic target, build one dedicated clean air space somewhere in the house.

Huber-Stearns herself owns several purifiers, including a unit from Coway, a budget-friendly brand, and a Rabbit Air model priced around $370 that can filter a 550-square-foot room roughly four times an hour. Turning even a single room into a clean-air zone gives a family somewhere to gather, or even sleep together, on the worst air days.

If a few-hundred-dollar purifier isn't in the budget, Huber-Stearns says a homemade box fan filter works in a pinch. The build is simple, duct-tape a properly sized MERV 13 certified air filter to the front of a box fan. The Environmental Protection Agency publishes step-by-step instructions for building this setup, officially known as a Corsi-Rosenthal box. A basic $24 box fan is enough to get started, and it's worth choosing one that's portable and easy to move between rooms.

One practical warning: air filters can vanish from store shelves fast once a major wildfire event hits the news, and price gouging isn't unusual during these stretches. Try not to pay triple-digit prices for a basic filter, and stock up before smoke season peaks rather than during it. According to Huber-Stearns, studies have found that a simple box fan filter can perform about as well as a store-bought purifier, as long as the filter gets swapped out as soon as it starts looking dirty, which can happen quickly during a heavy smoke event.

Keep an Eye on the Air Inside Your Own Home
Air quality can deteriorate faster than most people notice, which is where an indoor air quality monitor earns its keep, alerting you the moment conditions inside your home turn dangerous. Top-tier options like the AirVisual Pro from IQ Air track both PM 2.5 and CO2 levels and display indoor and outdoor readings side by side, along with temperature and humidity.

A cheaper option can also do the job, especially for households that want to track more than one room at once. A $46 monitor from GoveeLife, for instance, will flag it when PM 2.5 levels in a living room or bedroom cross into unsafe territory, which is especially useful overnight while everyone in the house is asleep.

Skip the Run, Skip the Playground, During Bad Air Days
Jogging is normally one of the healthiest things a person can do, but during a hazardous air event, it's one of the worst, according to Huber-Stearns, and the same logic applies to letting kids loose on a playground. "Basically, anything that's making you breathe harder is worse with poor air quality," she said. Hard exercise can push people to inhale as much as ten times more air than normal during extreme exertion, which means pulling in ten times more pollutants along with it.

For her own family, Huber-Stearns says the biggest protective habit is simply sticking to clean air spaces, staying home more, and swapping a trip to the park for a trip to the library when the kids need something to do.

For runners who can't bring themselves to skip a workout, a small 2022 study from the Cleveland Clinic suggests wearing an N95 mask while exercising outdoors is likely safe. Some clinicians remain cautious, though, warning that heavy breathing during exertion can break the tight seal an N95 needs against the face to filter effectively, on top of simply being uncomfortable to wear while gasping for air. The more conventional advice is to move workouts indoors entirely, ideally somewhere with a well-filtered HVAC system, like a gym, or a home fitted with its own air purifier.

Masking Up Correctly When You Have No Choice But to Go Out
Any time you have to step into smoky air, whether walking to the car or just crossing a parking lot, a mask should go on, and that includes while driving with the windows shut. A lot of households still have leftover N95 masks from the Covid-19 pandemic sitting in a drawer, but those masks have expiration dates, and the elastic straps degrade over time, which can leave an old mask no longer certified to filter properly. A 50-pack of fresh N95s costs less than $20, which makes replacing an old stash an easy call.

Getting kids to actually wear their masks matters just as much as owning them, since it's their still-developing lungs most at risk, regardless of whether they show any visible symptoms, Huber-Stearns said. The catch, she noted, is that children tend to pull their masks down the moment an adult looks away because the masks feel uncomfortable, which is why she keeps coming back to the same core advice, stay indoors in filtered air whenever that's an option at all.

The Mental Toll of Living Under a Haze
One thing Huber-Stearns says people often overlook is how exhausting constant vigilance can be. It's worth giving yourself some grace and tending to basic comfort, even if that means running a window air conditioner that isn't the most efficient form of cooling, because prolonged heat stress can end up being just as harmful, or worse, than the declining air quality itself, she said, which is why staying cool still matters through wildfire season, even as families also watch the smoke.

But the area drawing the most new attention and research right now is mental health. Living through weeks where the air itself feels like a threat wears on people's nerves and chips away at their ability to cope. "There are communities that have had six to eight weeks of hazardous air quality in a row," Huber-Stearns said. "The mental health impact of smoke, we're just starting to see some research with acknowledgment of this, is very real."

Even Huber-Stearns and other researchers studying wildfire smoke were caught off guard by how severe these effects can be. Over time, smoke-choked air can leave people depressed, short-tempered and irritable, and it can isolate them further as they retreat indoors to avoid breathing it. There's no single fix, but simply recognizing the pattern, and watching for it in people you care about, can help. "It can be really trauma-invoking for people that have been through fire or other smoke events," Huber-Stearns said. "I think there's not a recognition of how much of an impact that can have."

What this means for you
For people breathing smoky or polluted air:

• Checking a local air quality index before heading outside, and switching to an N95 mask once it crosses 150, can measurably cut how much particulate matter reaches your lungs.
• Building one clean air room at home, using a purifier or even a taped-together box fan filter, protects children and anyone with asthma or a weak immune system far more effectively than trying to seal an entire house.
• Persistent smoke exposure isn't just a breathing problem, it also raises the risk of heart disease and can affect mental health, so a hazy week deserves to be treated as a health event, not just an inconvenience.

Questions & Answers

1. Is wearing an N95 mask alone enough protection from wildfire smoke?
No, a mask alone isn't enough, building a clean air space at home, tracking the local air quality index and avoiding hard outdoor activity are just as important.

2. At what air quality index level should I start wearing a mask?
Sensitive groups should consider a mask once the index passes 150, and once it crosses 200 masking becomes advisable for everyone.

3. What's a cheap way to clean the air inside my home?
Taping a MERV 13 filter to the front of a box fan creates a homemade filter that studies show can perform about as well as a store-bought purifier.

4. Are children more affected by wildfire smoke?
Heidi Huber-Stearns says smoke can damage every child's developing lungs, whether or not they show visible symptoms like wheezing.

5. Is it safe to exercise outdoors in an N95 mask during a smoke event?
A small 2022 Cleveland Clinic study suggests it's likely safe, but heavy breathing can break the mask's seal, so exercising indoors is generally recommended instead.

6. What does prolonged smoke exposure do to mental health?
Huber-Stearns says weeks of hazardous air can leave people depressed, irritable and isolated, an effect that's especially strong for those who've lived through fire or smoke events before.

7. How can I monitor air quality inside my own home?
Premium monitors like the AirVisual Pro from IQ Air or a budget $46 GoveeLife monitor can track indoor PM 2.5 levels.

8. Where can I check outdoor air quality in my area?
Entering a zip code on Airnow.gov shows the local air quality index along with forecasts for the coming days.

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