Air Quality in Fort Worth, Texas — Live

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

Live Fort Worth AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Fort Worth and Arlington, Haltom City, Benbrook, White Settlement.

Fort Worth sits on top of its own gas field. The Barnett Shale is a hydrocarbon-producing formation that stretches from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex west and south across about 5,000 square miles, and unlike most shale plays it was drilled underneath a major city rather than out in open country — wellheads and compressor stations ended up beside schools, parks and back fences. That is the thing that makes air quality here a different conversation from the one in Dallas, forty minutes east, where a 1,500-foot setback adopted in 2013 kept drilling essentially out of the city limits.

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.

The city went and measured it itself

Rather than take the state's word for it, Fort Worth commissioned its own study. Eastern Research Group delivered the Fort Worth Natural Gas Air Quality Study on 13 July 2011, and it remains the most thorough look anyone has taken at what the industry emits inside a single city. ERG tested 388 gas-industry sites around Fort Worth, visited 375 well sites and eight compressor stations, and identified more than 140 chemicals in the air, benzene and xylene among them. Its headline conclusion was reassuring in one narrow sense: only five of the 388 facilities were emitting in quantities the study considered potentially dangerous.

The criticisms are worth knowing too, because they shape how much weight to put on that number. ERG stopped testing at 600 feet from a source, while critics pointed out that emissions disperse well beyond that. Emissions at three compressor stations were estimated from vendor data rather than measured. Dehydrator emissions, flowback water and flaring were left out. And the risk assessment addressed short-term exposure, not chronic. As one member of the study's own oversight committee put it: "People are going to be exposed to these emissions for a long time. And this study does not answer the question of how that exposure will affect them." The TCEQ now runs an automated gas chromatograph network across the Barnett Shale that publishes near-real-time readings, which is a fuller answer than anyone had in 2011.

Ozone season, and why it is the region's hardest problem

Tarrant County is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth ozone nonattainment area, and in June 2024 the EPA granted the State of Texas's own request to reclassify that area from Moderate to Serious for the 2015 ozone standard, effective 22 July 2024. Serious is not a description of how bad one afternoon feels; it is a regulatory tier that comes with tighter control requirements and a later deadline, and Texas asked for it because the region was not going to meet the Moderate one.

For a household, ozone behaves differently from smoke or dust and needs a different habit. It builds through a hot, sunny, low-wind day and peaks in the late afternoon, so it is at its worst exactly when kids finish school and people go out for a run. It is also invisible and does not smell like anything. Air quality alerts in this region are usually about ozone, not about anything you can see.

The dust that isn't smoke

On 4 March 2025 a haboob kicked up in West Texas and strong winds carried the dust east across the state. By around two in the afternoon the sky over North Texas had gone orange, visible from downtown Fort Worth, downtown Dallas and DFW International Airport, and hundreds of flights were cancelled. It looked apocalyptic and it moved through fairly quickly, but it was a fine-particle event of the sort a PM2.5 sensor picks up instantly.

Fort Worth sits closer to the dry country these events come from than the eastern side of the metroplex does, so dust here arrives earlier and, on a bad day, thicker. If the sensors on this page spike while the wind is howling and there is no fire anywhere, that is what you are seeing — and the response is the same as for smoke: windows shut, air conditioning on recirculate, and leave the outdoor exercise for tomorrow.

Fort Worth air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Fort Worth today?

Check whether it is smoke or dust first. On 4 March 2025 a West Texas haboob was blown east and turned the sky over downtown Fort Worth orange around two in the afternoon, with hundreds of flights cancelled at DFW. Dust arrives with strong wind and hazes the whole sky at once; smoke has a direction and a smell. Either way it registers as PM2.5 on the sensors on this page, and the sensible response is the same — close the windows, run the air conditioning on recirculate rather than fresh air, and postpone anything strenuous outdoors.

What is the air quality in Fort Worth right now?

This page shows the live AQI for Fort Worth, calculated from PurpleAir sensors around the city and updated continuously. Coverage varies neighbourhood to neighbourhood, and Fort Worth's pollution sources are unusually scattered — gas infrastructure, freight corridors and dust all show up in different places — so it is worth saving the addresses that actually matter to you rather than watching a single citywide figure.

Do the gas wells around Fort Worth affect the air I breathe?

The city's own study is the best evidence anyone has. Eastern Research Group tested 388 gas-industry sites in and around Fort Worth for the 2011 Fort Worth Natural Gas Air Quality Study, visiting 375 well sites and eight compressor stations, and found more than 140 chemicals in the air including benzene and xylene. It concluded that five of those 388 facilities were emitting at levels it considered potentially dangerous. The study's limits matter too: it stopped measuring at 600 feet from a source, estimated rather than measured some compressor station emissions, and assessed short-term rather than long-term exposure.

When is ozone season in Fort Worth, and why does it matter?

Roughly late spring through early autumn, with the worst readings on hot, sunny, low-wind afternoons. Ozone is not emitted directly — it forms when exhaust and vapours react in sunlight over several hours — so it builds through the day and peaks in the late afternoon rather than at rush hour. Tarrant County is inside the Dallas-Fort Worth nonattainment area, which the EPA reclassified from Moderate to Serious for the 2015 ozone standard effective 22 July 2024, at the State of Texas's own request. In practice: morning exercise beats evening exercise from May to September.

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.