Air Quality in Berkeley, California — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Berkeley — with free alerts the moment the air turns.

Live Berkeley AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Berkeley and Oakland, Albany, Emeryville, El Cerrito.

Berkeley is a narrow city that climbs from the bay shore to a ridge, and that is the single most useful thing to know about its air. The flats along Interstate 80 and the hill neighbourhoods below Grizzly Peak sit roughly 1,600 feet apart in elevation and can genuinely be in different air on the same afternoon. The city's two real risks come from opposite directions: fire coming over the ridge from the east on a dry wind, and industry up the shoreline to the north.

Canairy watches the sensors around your home, your kids' school, and everywhere else you care about, and tells you in plain English when the air changes enough to matter.

Berkeley's own fire was 1923, and the 1991 one is named for Oakland

On 17 September 1923 a fire that started in the chaparral of Wildcat Canyon was pushed over the ridge by a strong, gusty, intensely dry north-easterly wind and burned into the city itself. It destroyed 640 structures, 584 of them houses, tearing through the La Loma Park and Northside neighbourhoods above the university and heading down Shattuck Avenue toward downtown. It stopped when the north-easterly died and cooler sea air came back in off the bay. That is the pattern that still governs fire weather here: an offshore wind from the north-east is the dangerous one, and the return of the sea breeze is what ends it.

The 1991 firestorm is the one people remember, and it is worth being accurate about it. Cal Fire's official name is the Tunnel Fire; it is commonly called the Oakland Hills firestorm because most of it burned in northern Oakland, though it also burned in south-eastern Berkeley. It ran from 19 to 23 October 1991 over 1,520 acres, killed 25 people, injured 150, and destroyed 2,843 single-family homes plus 437 apartments and condominiums. It carries Oakland's name for a reason, but the ridge it burned along is the same ridge that overlooks Berkeley.

The refinery is up the shoreline, and the advisories usually stop short of Berkeley

The Chevron refinery in Richmond sits a few miles north-west of the UC Berkeley campus, and people here notice when it flares. On 6 August 2012 at 6.15pm a major fire there triggered a community warning, a five-hour shelter-in-place order, and thousands of people seeking medical treatment. It is a checkable event, so check what it actually covered: the shelter-in-place applied to Richmond, North Richmond, San Pablo and El Cerrito. Berkeley was not in it, though black smoke was visible over parts of the East Bay. Air District sampling afterwards found acrolein at 3.2 parts per billion in one sample with seven others below levels of concern, and concluded that the health effects people reported were most likely from smoke particles rather than the specific toxic compounds measured.

The same holds for the flaring that still happens. When the Air District issued an air quality advisory for Chevron Richmond flaring on 31 May 2025, it named Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole and Hercules along with parts of Solano County. Berkeley again was not on the list. The fair summary is that the refinery is close enough to see and occasionally smell from north Berkeley, and that the measured impacts of its worst days have landed north of here rather than on the city. If that ever changes on a particular day, the sensors north of University Avenue are where it would show up first.

The flats and the hills are two different places for air

West Berkeley sits between the bay and Interstate 80, on a corridor Alameda CTC describes as one of the busiest in the Bay Area, carrying as many as 270,000 vehicles a day across the twenty miles between the Carquinez and Bay bridges. The rebuild of the Gilman Street interchange in north-west Berkeley cites volumes approaching 300,000 a day in places. Traffic pollution drops off quickly with distance from the roadway, so an address near Gilman or Ashby and one up in Elmwood are not measuring the same thing.

Elevation splits it further. Central Berkeley sits around 171 feet above sea level; Grizzly Peak on the eastern boundary is 1,754 feet. When a layer of warm air settles over cool marine air, the resulting inversion acts as a lid, and the flats can stay hazy while hillside streets sit above it in clearer air. During a regional smoke event this can reverse, so the practical advice is the same either way: watch the sensor nearest your own elevation and your own block, not a single number for the city.

Berkeley air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Berkeley right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Berkeley, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the city and updated continuously. Because Berkeley runs from the bay shore up to a 1,754-foot ridge, readings in the flats and up in the hills can differ on the same afternoon. The map below shows every live sensor so you can find the one closest to your own street.

Why is there smoke in Berkeley today?

Most of the time it has blown in from a fire well outside the city, somewhere else in Northern California, and settled over the East Bay. Occasionally it is much closer: the hills on Berkeley's eastern boundary are grass and chaparral, and a dry north-easterly wind is the condition that has driven fire over that ridge before, in 1923 and again in 1991. On a cold, still winter evening a low haze is more likely to be wood smoke from fireplaces. The live number on this page will tell you within minutes which situation you are in.

Does the Chevron Richmond refinery affect Berkeley's air?

Less than people assume, based on what has actually been measured. The refinery is a few miles north-west of the UC Berkeley campus. The August 2012 fire there brought a five-hour shelter-in-place order, but it covered Richmond, North Richmond, San Pablo and El Cerrito, not Berkeley. The Air District's advisory for flaring on 31 May 2025 named Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole, Hercules and part of Solano County, again not Berkeley. You may see or smell a flare from north Berkeley; the recorded impacts have generally stayed north of the city.

Is air quality worse in the Berkeley flats than in the hills?

They are different rather than reliably worse. The flats sit alongside Interstate 80, a corridor carrying as many as 270,000 vehicles a day, and near-road pollution falls off sharply within a few blocks, so streets close to the freeway or the Gilman interchange can read higher during peak hours. Elevation adds a second effect: when an inversion forms, the lower city can hold haze while hill streets sit above it. During a wide regional smoke event the whole city tends to read alike. That is why this page shows every sensor rather than one average.

What AQI level is unhealthy?

Under the US EPA scale, AQI 0–50 is Good and 51–100 is Moderate. From 101 the air is Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups — kids, older adults, and people with asthma or heart conditions — and above 150 it's Unhealthy for everyone. Canairy translates these numbers into a plain-English verdict, like whether to close the windows or move a workout indoors.

Is Canairy free?

Yes. The Canairy app is free to download and includes live air quality for all your saved places, plain-English verdicts, and free push alerts when the air crosses your threshold. A paid plan adds extras like SMS text alerts.

Get Canairy free on Google Play.