Air Quality in Halifax, Nova Scotia — Live

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

Live Halifax AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Halifax and Dartmouth, Bedford, Lower Sackville, Cole Harbour.

Most of the time Halifax breathes clean air off the Atlantic, and the sensors around the city read near the bottom of the scale. The exception is not a distant fire season the way it is for most Canadian cities. On 28 May 2023 a wildfire broke out in the Hammonds Plains and Upper Tantallon communities at the western edge of the municipality. Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency's post-incident analysis records more than 900 hectares burned, 16,400 people evacuated and roughly 200 structures lost, including 151 homes, in what it calls the municipality's most extensive urban interface wildfire.

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 2023 fire started at the edge of the subdivisions

Most Canadian cities get their smoke second-hand, blown in from fires hundreds of kilometres away. Halifax's worst air in living memory came from a fire in its own suburbs, in the neighbourhoods off Highway 103. It was not the only one burning that spring. The province's independent after-action review of the 2023 season, prepared by Calian for the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, records that the Barrington Lake fire in Shelburne County became the largest wildfire in Nova Scotia's recorded history, and that between them the Barrington Lake and Tantallon fires damaged more than 25,000 hectares and destroyed more than 200 homes. The Provincial Wildfire Coordination Centre was activated on 28 May and the fires were well under control by 11 June 2023.

What followed is a fairly practical list. An after-action report completed in October 2023 made nine recommendations and was accepted by Regional Council on 28 November 2023. A Voluntary Vulnerable Persons Registry launched in November 2023 for residents who need extra help during an emergency. In April 2024 the municipality and the province installed three FireScout wildfire-detection cameras at Musquodoboit Harbour, Middle Sackville and Hammonds Plains, giving a 360-degree view and round-the-clock watch for smoke, and Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency hired a Wildfire Mitigation Program Manager the same month. Council also asked staff to work out emergency-only egress routes from the Westwood Hills subdivision onto Highway 103, having watched what happened when a single way out was not enough.

Three official stations, and what they cannot tell you

Environment Canada publishes the Air Quality Health Index for Halifax from three stations: Halifax, Halifax Downtown, and Halifax - Lake Major. The index here is a joint effort between Environment Canada, Health Canada, Nova Scotia Environment and the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, working with the Lung Association of Nova Scotia and Clean Nova Scotia. Environment Canada attaches a candid footnote to the live numbers: the supporting data arrives in real time, which precludes detailed quality control, and users are told not to treat current conditions as publication-grade.

Three stations across a municipality this large is a coarse picture, and it is coarsest in exactly the places where the 2023 fire did its damage, out past Bedford and Hammonds Plains where the subdivisions meet the woods. Nova Scotia's wildfire risk season runs from 15 March to 15 October, and during it the province sets a daily burn restriction by county, with no domestic brush burning or campfires permitted between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. even on the least restricted days. The sensors on the map below are what fill the space between the three official monitors when something is burning nearby.

Halifax air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Halifax today?

Most days there is not, and that is the honest answer. Halifax sits on the open Atlantic and its air is usually clean. When smoke does show up it is nearly always a wildfire, either in the province or blown in from fires much further west. The local version is real here in a way it is not in most Canadian cities: the Upper Tantallon and Hammonds Plains fire on 28 May 2023 burned more than 900 hectares at the municipality's western edge. Nova Scotia's wildfire risk season runs from 15 March to 15 October, and the province publishes a daily county-by-county burn restriction during it.

What is the air quality in Halifax right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Halifax, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the municipality and updated continuously. On a normal day you should expect a low number. It is worth checking the map rather than the headline figure if you live toward Hammonds Plains, Tantallon or the other edges of the municipality, where the three official monitoring stations are furthest away and a nearby fire would show up on a neighbourhood sensor first.

Canada reports the AQHI, so why does this page show a different number?

Environment and Climate Change Canada publishes the Air Quality Health Index, a 1 to 10+ scale built from three pollutants measured together: fine particulate matter, ground-level ozone and nitrogen dioxide. PurpleAir sensors measure fine particulate matter only, so an AQHI cannot honestly be calculated from them. This page shows the US EPA AQI instead, which is derived from PM2.5 directly and is what most air quality apps use. It is not an AQHI and Canairy does not present it as one. For the official AQHI for Halifax, Environment Canada and Nova Scotia Environment are the sources, reporting from the Halifax, Halifax Downtown and Halifax - Lake Major stations.

Could another fire like Upper Tantallon happen here?

The municipality has treated that as a when rather than an if. Since 2023 it has installed three FireScout smoke-detection cameras at Musquodoboit Harbour, Middle Sackville and Hammonds Plains, hired a dedicated Wildfire Mitigation Program Manager, launched a registry for residents who would need help evacuating, and studied emergency egress options for the Westwood Hills subdivision. Residents are pointed at the FireSmart program for reducing risk around their own homes. If a fire does start close by, the first sign for most people is smoke, which is why a sensor near your own street is worth watching in fire season.

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.