Air Quality in Colorado Springs, Colorado — Live
Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Colorado Springs — with free alerts the moment smoke moves in.
Live Colorado Springs AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, Monument, Fountain, Woodland Park.
Colorado Springs sits more than a mile high at the foot of the Front Range, and most days the air here is genuinely good — the city isn't even part of Denver's chronic ozone problem to the north. What changes that is wildfire, and it doesn't have to start far away: some of the most destructive fires in Colorado history have ignited right at the city's own edge, in the ponderosa pine country and grasslands that ring it.
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.
Colorado Springs isn't part of Denver's ozone problem
Colorado's eight-hour ozone nonattainment area covers Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson counties, plus parts of Weld and Larimer — the Denver Metro/North Front Range corridor where summer smog regularly pushes AQI into Moderate and Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups territory. El Paso County, where Colorado Springs sits, is not on that list. Day to day, that shows up as real, measurable relief: about 243 sunny days a year, a semi-arid climate, and none of the trapped brown haze that settles over Denver on hot summer afternoons.
That doesn't mean the air is perfect — ozone and fine particles can still drift down from the Denver metro on north winds, and the city has its own particulate problem the moment wildfire smoke is involved. But the baseline is real: unlike its neighbor 70 miles north, Colorado Springs isn't fighting a chronic summer smog problem, which is exactly why the exceptions — a bad fire season — stand out so sharply here.
Two of Colorado's most destructive fires started at the city's front door
The Waldo Canyon Fire started just four miles northwest of downtown on June 23, 2012, and by the time it was contained on July 10 it had burned 18,247 acres and destroyed 346 homes. On June 26, a record 101-degree day pushed the fire through Queen's Canyon and into the city itself, forcing more than 32,000 people out of Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Woodland Park, and the Air Force Academy. Smoke was thick enough that Memorial Health System's emergency room treated adults and children for breathing problems well beyond the evacuation zone.
Less than a year later, on June 11, 2013, the Black Forest Fire ignited about 15 miles north near Highway 83 and Shoup Road. It burned 14,280 acres, destroyed 511 homes, and briefly became the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history — a record it held until the 2021 Marshall Fire near Boulder. Roughly 38,000 residents evacuated, and the smoke plumes were heavy enough that at least one evacuation shelter had to relocate because of the smoke itself.
The Pineries are why this keeps happening here
Black Forest takes its name from the dense stand of ponderosa pine — locally called the Pineries — that spreads across a plateau north of the city at around 7,300 feet. That kind of forest, dry needles and all, is built to burn hot and fast once it catches, which is exactly what happened in 2013. To the east and south of the city, the terrain changes to short-grass prairie, a different fuel that carries fire just as fast in a dry, windy spring.
Both fires made the same point: smoke doesn't wait for flames to reach your neighborhood. In 2012, people who never got an evacuation notice still ended up in the emergency room because of what was in the air that week. That's the reason to check an actual sensor reading on a bad fire day rather than judge it by whether your street is on the evacuation map.
Colorado Springs air quality FAQ
What is the air quality in Colorado Springs right now?
This page shows the current AQI for Colorado Springs, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the city and updated continuously. The map below shows every live sensor, so you can check the reading closest to your own neighborhood.
Why did Colorado Springs have such bad air in 2012 and 2013?
Two of Colorado's most destructive wildfires both started at the edge of the city within a year of each other. The Waldo Canyon Fire burned into Colorado Springs itself in June 2012, and the Black Forest Fire destroyed 511 homes just north of the city in June 2013. Both sent thick smoke over neighborhoods well outside the official evacuation zones, which is the pattern worth watching for in any dry, windy fire season since.
Is Colorado Springs' air quality worse than Denver's?
Generally no. El Paso County, where Colorado Springs sits, is not part of the Denver Metro/North Front Range ozone nonattainment area that covers Denver and its closer suburbs, so the city doesn't carry Denver's chronic summer smog problem. The exception is wildfire smoke, which can affect both cities regardless of ozone status whenever a fire is burning nearby or upwind.
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.
Where does Canairy's Colorado Springs data come from?
Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Colorado Springs and surrounding towns, cross-referenced with government monitors and the Google Air Quality API. You can see every sensor behind your numbers on the live map - there's no black box.
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.