Air Quality in Klamath Falls, Oregon — Live

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

Live Klamath Falls AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Klamath Falls and Altamont, Keno, Chiloquin, Merrill.

Klamath Falls has one of the most stubborn winter air problems in Oregon, and it is almost entirely homegrown. The city sits at about 4,095 feet on the southeastern shore of Upper Klamath Lake, in a basin in the rain shadow of the Cascades that gets barely thirteen and a half inches of rain a year. On cold, clear nights the air stratifies, cold air settling on the basin floor with warmer air sitting over the top of it, and the smoke from the city's wood stoves has nowhere to go. EPA designated the area a federal nonattainment area for fine particles in 2009, and the city has been working its way back out ever since.

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 basin is a bowl, and in winter it has a lid

Klamath County Public Health explains the mechanism in one sentence: when temperatures are low and the skies are clear, the cold air moves below the warm air and traps the smoke in the basin. That is a temperature inversion, and during one the mixing height — the depth of atmosphere available to dilute anything released into it — collapses to a fraction of normal. Smoke that would blow away on an ordinary day just accumulates a few hundred feet above the streets.

The rest of the geography works against the city too. High desert at 4,000-plus feet means genuinely cold winters and a long heating season. The Cascade rain shadow means fewer of the wet Pacific fronts that scour the Willamette Valley clean every few days. So a Klamath Falls inversion can hold for days, and the readings climb the whole time.

Nonattainment, and the long road back

EPA designated the Klamath Falls area nonattainment for the 24-hour PM2.5 standard on November 13, 2009, and classified it moderate on June 2, 2014. DEQ submitted an attainment plan in December 2012 built almost entirely around controlling residential wood combustion, and EPA approved it on June 6, 2016. The measurements come from the Peterson School regulatory monitor. Its 24-hour design value was 34 micrograms per cubic meter for 2012 through 2014, 32 for 2015 through 2017 with wildfire days excluded, and 34 again for 2022 through 2024 — against a federal standard of 35.

Oregon submitted a request on August 20, 2024 asking EPA to redesignate the area to attainment and to approve a maintenance plan demonstrating continued attainment through 2037, and EPA proposed to approve it in March 2026. It is worth reading those numbers honestly. A design value of 34 against a limit of 35 is passing the test, not solving the problem. Residential wood heating remains the major source of the emissions behind the winter violations.

The burn calendar and the stove swap

From October 15 through March 15, Klamath County runs a mandatory curtailment program tied to the forecast for the next day inside the Klamath Falls air quality zone. Below 22 micrograms per cubic meter, burning is allowed. Between 22 and 35, only exempt devices — certified stoves, pellet stoves and fireplace inserts — may be used. Above 35, no burning is allowed and exemptions are void. If you heat with wood here, checking the day's advisory before you light the stove is part of the routine.

The other half of the strategy is replacing the stoves outright. EPA awarded Oregon DEQ a targeted airshed grant of $1,839,947 in December 2020, then a second one of $4,669,372 in November 2023 to fund roughly 300 more stove replacements with heat pumps and gas furnaces plus about 100 home weatherization projects over five years, with priority for low-income households and renters. EPA credits nearly 500 replacements in the decade before that, and the work is run locally by DEQ with Klamath County Public Health, the South Central Oregon Economic Development District and Klamath Lake Community Action Services.

Klamath Falls air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Klamath Falls today?

It depends on the season. From roughly October through March, smoke in Klamath Falls is usually residential wood heating held down by an inversion — cold air settling in the basin with warm air over the top, so nothing disperses. That is the pattern behind the area's federal nonattainment designation, and it is why the county runs a mandatory burn curtailment program from October 15 to March 15. In late summer the more likely source is wildfire smoke drifting in from fires elsewhere in southern Oregon or northern California.

What is the air quality in Klamath Falls right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Klamath Falls, calculated from PurpleAir sensors around the basin and updated continuously. During a winter inversion the readings can differ noticeably between neighborhoods depending on how many stoves are burning nearby and how the cold air is pooling, so the map below shows every live sensor rather than one number for the whole city.

Can I burn wood in Klamath Falls tonight?

Check the county's advisory first — it is issued daily from October 15 through March 15 for the Klamath Falls air quality zone, based on the forecast fine-particle level. If the forecast is under 22 micrograms per cubic meter, burning is allowed. Between 22 and 35, only exempt devices such as certified stoves, pellet stoves and fireplace inserts may be used. Above 35, no burning is allowed inside the zone and exemptions do not apply.

Is Klamath Falls still a federal nonattainment area?

It has been designated nonattainment for the 24-hour PM2.5 standard since November 2009. Oregon asked EPA on August 20, 2024 to redesignate the area to attainment and to approve a maintenance plan that would hold through 2037, and EPA proposed to approve that request in March 2026. The measured numbers are close to the line: the Peterson School monitor's design value for 2022 through 2024 was 34 micrograms per cubic meter against a standard of 35.

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.