Air Quality in Fayetteville, Arkansas — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Fayetteville — with free alerts the moment ozone or smoke moves in.

Live Fayetteville AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Fayetteville and Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, Prairie Grove.

Fayetteville sits up on the Ozark Plateau, not down in a smoke-trapping valley, and for most of the year that shows: the air here is genuinely clean, and Washington County earns a top grade for fine-particle pollution. The real story is ozone, and it's a newer one — 2023 was the first year local monitors measured ground-level ozone above the federal health standard, a change tied less to any single polluter than to how fast Northwest Arkansas is growing.

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.

Why Fayetteville's air is changing: growth, not geography

Unlike a valley city where hills trap pollution, Fayetteville sits on rolling Ozark Plateau terrain around 1,378 feet up, with elevation that generally lets air move rather than stagnate. That's part of why Washington County's fine-particle pollution grade from the American Lung Association's 2026 State of the Air report is a clean A. The county's ozone grade, though, is a D for high ozone days recorded from 2022 through 2024 — a newer problem in a region that spent years without one.

The Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metro is one of the fastest-growing in the country, adding roughly 40 new residents a day recently and growing about 41 percent since 2010, much of that traffic concentrated along the I-49 corridor connecting Fayetteville to Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville. More people means more cars, and state monitoring first measured ozone levels above the federal 0.070 parts-per-million threshold here in 2023 — officials point to the same simple math each year: emissions rise because a small city's worth of new residents arrives every decade.

Ozone advisories here aren't just a summer thing

Arkansas's Division of Environmental Quality has issued Code Orange ozone action advisories for Washington and Benton counties on hot, sunny, stagnant days in April and again over Memorial Day weekend in 2023 — and again in early October 2024, a reminder that ozone season in this part of the Ozarks can stretch well past summer whenever the weather sets up right. A Code Orange day means the forecast expects ozone concentrations that are unhealthy for sensitive groups: kids, older adults, and anyone with asthma or other breathing conditions.

On advisory days, the state's advice is the practical kind: limit prolonged outdoor exertion, especially in the afternoon when ozone peaks, and take small steps that cut vehicle emissions — refueling before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m., combining errands, carpooling instead of driving solo. None of that requires a smoke-season mindset; it's a warm-afternoon, watch-the-forecast mindset instead.

What about wildfire smoke and the poultry farms?

Fayetteville isn't a wildfire-smoke city the way Northern California is. Canadian wildfire smoke has drifted into Arkansas during recent bad-smoke summers — including a haze event in July 2026 — but forecasters have generally described the impact here as slight, with the thickest smoke staying well north over the Great Lakes and Midwest. It's worth checking on the worst days, but it isn't the defining feature of Fayetteville's air the way it is in the Pacific Northwest or Northern California.

Northwest Arkansas is also one of the country's biggest poultry-producing regions, with Washington and Benton counties home to well over 800 poultry farms tied to companies like Tyson. Neighbors near some operations, particularly around Prairie Grove, have long complained about dust and odor from chicken houses and litter spreading. It's a real local irritant, but the region's own particle-pollution grade — that clean A — suggests it isn't moving the needle on the kind of fine-particle readings Canairy tracks the way ozone does.

Fayetteville air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Fayetteville right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Fayetteville, 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 does Fayetteville get ozone advisories outside of summer?

Arkansas has issued Code Orange ozone action advisories for Washington and Benton counties in April, over Memorial Day weekend, and even in early October, because ozone forms whenever hot, sunny, stagnant weather combines with vehicle and industrial emissions — a combination that isn't limited to July and August in the Ozarks.

Does wildfire smoke reach Fayetteville?

Occasionally, but it's rarely the main story. Canadian wildfire smoke has drifted into Arkansas during recent smoke-heavy summers, including July 2026, but the impact here has generally been described as slight haze rather than the sustained hazardous smoke that Western cities see. Fayetteville's bigger air-quality trend is rising ozone, not smoke.

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 Fayetteville data come from?

Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Fayetteville and surrounding Northwest Arkansas towns like Springdale and Rogers, 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.