Air Quality in Huntington Beach, California — Live

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

Live Huntington Beach AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Huntington Beach and Seal Beach, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa.

Huntington Beach starts from a better position than most of Southern California. The onshore wind off the Pacific keeps the coast cleaner than the inland valleys, and South Coast AQMD sites its regulatory monitors inland for exactly that reason — a district spokesman explained in 2021 that the highest concentrations of ozone and PM2.5 tend to be inland. What makes the air here worth watching is not the everyday background but the industry sitting in and offshore of the city: an oil field under the neighborhoods, a gas-fired power plant on Pacific Coast Highway, and drilling platforms visible from the sand.

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.

What the 2021 oil spill actually did to the air

On October 1, 2021 the San Pedro Bay Pipeline, operated by Beta Offshore, a unit of Amplify Energy, ruptured about 4.5 miles off Huntington Beach; investigators concluded a ship's anchor had likely hooked and dragged it. Estimates of how much crude escaped varied widely, from early figures as high as 126,000 gallons down to later consensus estimates around 24,500. Beaches closed on the evening of October 2 and did not fully reopen until October 11.

The air side of it was mostly odor, and it was over quickly. Huntington Beach and Newport Beach residents called police on the afternoon and evening of October 1 reporting the smell of oil fumes or hot roofing bitumen — two days before the spill was announced publicly on the morning of October 3. South Coast AQMD deployed mobile monitoring along the coast on October 4, having no permanent regulatory monitors in Orange County's coastal cities, and by October 8 air quality in Orange County was back to normal and below California health standards for the pollutants measured. It was a water and wildlife disaster far more than an air one, and it is worth saying that plainly.

The oil field is still under the city, and the platforms are still out there

Huntington Beach sits on top of the Huntington Beach Oil Field, and oil pumps still dot the city even as the reserves have depleted. Offshore there are the federal-lease platforms Edith, Elly, Ellen and Eureka, plus the state-lease platforms Ester, Emmy and Eva. Elly, the processing platform that strips water out of the pumped crude, sits about 8.6 miles out, and the pipeline that failed in 2021 ran roughly 17.5 miles from there toward the Port of Long Beach.

On shore, the AES site on Pacific Coast Highway runs a 644 MW air-cooled combined-cycle turbine commissioned on February 4, 2020 on a 53-acre parcel. The US Energy Information Administration lists AES Alamitos and Huntington Beach — 1,368 MW between them — as the largest natural gas retirement scheduled for 2026, a date that has already slipped from 2020 and then 2023 because the grid still needed the capacity. One caveat worth knowing: neighborhood sensors read fine particles well, but they do not measure the specific gases that come with oil, gas and power operations.

The coast is not out of range of canyon smoke

The ocean breeze is a genuine advantage for most of the year, but it does not hold when a fire is burning in the Orange County foothills and the wind turns offshore. During the Bond Fire in December 2020, South Coast AQMD's smoke advisory recorded very unhealthy AQI in Newport Beach — the city immediately southeast of Huntington Beach — along with Irvine and Lake Forest, and unhealthy AQI across northern Orange County and the Long Beach area. The same advisory declared a no-burn day across the whole South Coast Air Basin. A fire twenty miles inland is still a Huntington Beach problem.

Huntington Beach air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Huntington Beach today?

It has almost certainly drifted in rather than started here. Fires in the Orange County foothills and in Los Angeles County reach the coast when the wind swings offshore. In December 2020 the Bond Fire, burning in Silverado Canyon well inland, put neighboring Newport Beach into the very unhealthy AQI category under a South Coast AQMD advisory, and northern Orange County into the unhealthy category. If nothing is burning in the news, a smoky smell on a still evening is more often something local — a fire pit, or traffic exhaust sitting under an inversion.

What is the air quality in Huntington Beach right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Huntington Beach, calculated from PurpleAir sensors around the city and updated continuously. It is worth checking the sensor nearest you rather than a citywide figure — a reading down by the pier and one up near the 405 are describing different air. The map below shows every live sensor.

Did the 2021 oil spill make the air unsafe to breathe?

The lasting damage was to the water, the beaches and the wildlife rather than the air. Residents in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach reported a strong smell of oil fumes on October 1, 2021, before the spill was publicly announced on October 3. South Coast AQMD sent mobile monitoring to the coast on October 4, and by October 8 air quality in Orange County was back to normal and below California health standards for the pollutants that were measured. Beaches stayed closed until October 11.

Does the power plant on Pacific Coast Highway show up in the air?

Not in a way a neighborhood particle sensor is designed to catch. The current unit there is a 644 MW air-cooled combined-cycle gas turbine commissioned in February 2020, and the older generating capacity at AES Huntington Beach and AES Alamitos is scheduled to retire in 2026 after two earlier target dates slipped. PurpleAir sensors measure fine particles, so they will pick up smoke and haze, but they are not the instrument for nitrogen oxides or any other specific gas.

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.