Air Quality in Gillette, Wyoming — Live
Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Gillette — with free alerts when the wind kicks up dust across the Powder River Basin.
Live Gillette AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Gillette and Wright, Moorcroft, Rozet, Sundance.
Most of the year, Gillette's air is unremarkable — this is high, dry, sparsely populated Wyoming prairie, not a wildfire-prone forest corridor. The real story here is wind: Campbell County sits in the open Powder River Basin between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills, and when a strong wind event blows through, it can kick up enough dust to swing the AQI hard, which is why Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality has run a dedicated PM10 monitor in town since 1991.
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 Gillette gets blowing-dust days
Gillette sits at about 4,554 feet in the Powder River Basin, an open, largely treeless stretch of high plains with the Bighorn Mountains to the west and the Black Hills to the east — geography with nothing to slow the wind down. When a strong front moves through, gusts of 40 to 60 mph are common, and Wyoming DEQ has issued blowing-dust health advisories for the Powder River Basin during events with west winds reported up to 100 mph.
The state takes this seriously enough to run the Gillette SLAMS station, a PM10 monitor that has tracked coarse dust particles in town since 1991 — one of the longer-running monitoring records of its kind in Wyoming. DEQ's High Wind Mitigation Plan and its blowing-dust health brochure exist specifically because Campbell County's flat, dry terrain turns an ordinary windy day into a genuine air-quality event, which surprises a lot of people who assume a place with no wildfire reputation has nothing to watch.
The coal mines are part of the air here too
Campbell County produces more coal than any other county in the United States, and the mines start close to Gillette's edge. Black Thunder, down near Wright about 40 miles south, has been described as the single most productive coal mine in the country; Eagle Butte and several other surface mines operate even nearer to town. Draglines and haul trucks strip overburden and move rock across large open pits, and fugitive dust from haul roads and exposed spoil piles is a routine, permitted part of that work, not an accident.
Mine operators are required to run dust-control measures like water trucks and haul-road speed limits, and part of what DEQ's monitoring network in Gillette exists for is confirming that dust stays within permit limits. It's a different kind of pollution story than most cities Canairy covers — less one dramatic event, more a steady background level that occasionally spikes on the same high-wind days that already sting your eyes.
Summer can still bring smoke, just less predictably
Gillette isn't a forested mountain town, but the grass and sagebrush of the Powder River Basin burn fast in a dry summer, and fires on private, state, and BLM land within Campbell County itself have triggered air-quality alerts in recent years, alongside smoke that drifts in from larger fires burning in the Bighorns, the Black Hills, or farther west.
These smoke events are shorter and less predictable than the wind-driven dust days, but they matter for the same reason: a handful of weeks each summer can change Gillette's air fast, even though the rest of the year it's unremarkable in the best possible sense.
Gillette air quality FAQ
What is the air quality in Gillette right now?
This page shows the current AQI for Gillette, calculated from PurpleAir sensors around the city and updated continuously. The map below shows every live sensor, so you can check the reading closest to your own neighborhood or the mine roads on the edge of town.
Why does Gillette get so much blowing dust?
Gillette sits in the open Powder River Basin between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills, with nothing to slow the wind down. High-wind events with gusts of 40 to 60 mph, sometimes more, are common enough that Wyoming's DEQ issues blowing-dust health advisories and has run a dedicated PM10 monitor in town since 1991.
Do the coal mines around Gillette affect the air quality?
Yes, to a degree. Campbell County produces more coal than any other county in the US, and surface mines like Black Thunder near Wright and Eagle Butte just outside Gillette generate fugitive dust from haul roads and exposed pits as a routine part of permitted operations. Mine operators run water trucks and other dust controls, and DEQ's monitoring network helps confirm dust stays within permit limits.
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 Gillette data come from?
Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Gillette 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.