Air Quality in Irvine, California — Live
Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Irvine — with free alerts the moment the air turns.
Live Irvine AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Irvine and Tustin, Lake Forest, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa.
Most of the year Irvine's air is unremarkable, and that is rather the point: no port, no refinery, and enough ocean influence to keep the worst of the basin's smog inland of it. The exception sits on the city's eastern edge, where the planned neighborhoods stop and the Santa Ana Mountains foothills begin. In October 2020 the Silverado Fire started near Santiago Canyon Road, burned 13,390 acres and put roughly 90,000 residents and schools under mandatory evacuation orders, driven by Santa Ana winds that Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy called "extraordinary even by Santa Ana standards." Five weeks later the Bond Fire burned through the same canyons, and South Coast AQMD's smoke advisory recorded very unhealthy AQI in Irvine.
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 fires start in the canyons, not in the city
Irvine itself has very little to burn. The fires that matter here start in the brush of the foothills northeast of town and push down through the canyons. The Silverado Fire ran from October 26 to November 7, 2020 and covered 13,390 acres; Southern California Edison later said a lashing wire from a T-Mobile telecommunications line may have contacted one of its electric lines. Evacuation orders reached Irvine communities including Orchard Hills, Northwood and Portola Springs.
The Bond Fire followed on December 2, 2020, starting from a house fire on Bond Way in the community of Silverado and burning 6,686 acres before containment on December 10. It burned right up against the Silverado Fire's fresh scar, forced about 25,000 people out and destroyed 31 structures. South Coast AQMD's smoke advisory that week put Newport Beach, Irvine and Lake Forest in the very unhealthy AQI category and declared a no-burn day banning wood burning across the whole South Coast Air Basin.
Does a countywide air quality number mean anything here?
Not much. South Coast AQMD splits Orange County into six separate forecast areas — North Orange County, Central Orange County, North Coastal Orange County, Saddleback Valley, Central Coastal and Capistrano Valley — because one number for a county this varied would be close to useless. Irvine stretches from near the Newport Beach line all the way up to the foothills, and the two ends of the city do not always read the same.
The district's own monitoring makes the point. During the Silverado and Blue Ridge fires in late October 2020, AQMD reported that monitors and low-cost sensors across its entire jurisdiction were reading Good to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups — except for its temporary monitor in Irvine, which was reading Unhealthy.
Living near the El Toro Y is its own question
Interstate 5 and Interstate 405 merge in southeastern Irvine at the interchange everyone calls the El Toro Y. Daily traffic there grew from about 102,000 vehicles in 1975 to roughly 356,000 by 2002, and when the expansion finished in 1997 the interchange stood 26 lanes wide, briefly one of the widest roads in the world.
Tailpipe pollution drops off sharply with distance from a freeway, so this is a street-by-street question rather than a citywide one. If your home or your child's school sits within a few hundred yards of the 5, the 405 or the 133, the sensor nearest you will tell you more than any Irvine average.
Irvine air quality FAQ
Why is there smoke in Irvine today?
Most of the time it has come down from the canyons on the city's eastern edge. The Silverado Fire in October 2020 and the Bond Fire that December both started in the canyon country northeast of town, and both put smoke over the city — during the Bond Fire, South Coast AQMD's advisory recorded very unhealthy AQI in Irvine, Newport Beach and Lake Forest. Smoke also drifts in from fires elsewhere in the basin. If nothing is burning anywhere, haze on a still summer afternoon is more likely ozone than smoke.
What is the air quality in Irvine right now?
This page shows Irvine's current AQI, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the city and updated continuously. Because Irvine runs from near the Newport Beach line up into the foothills, the reading nearest you is worth more than a citywide figure. The map below shows every live sensor.
How close did the Silverado Fire get to Irvine?
Close enough that about 90,000 residents and schools were told to leave. The fire began near Santiago Canyon Road on October 26, 2020, in the foothills northeast of the city, and evacuation orders reached Irvine communities including Orchard Hills, Northwood and Portola Springs before it was contained on November 7 at 13,390 acres.
Is Irvine's air better than the rest of Orange County?
On an ordinary day, generally yes. Irvine has no port, no refinery and no heavy industry, and it sits far enough west to miss the worst of the region's inland ozone — South Coast AQMD keeps its regulatory monitors inland precisely because, as a district spokesman put it in 2021, the highest concentrations of ozone and PM2.5 tend to be inland. What Irvine has instead is a fire season on its eastern boundary, and those events move the reading further and faster than anything routine.
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.
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