Air Quality in Orlando, Florida — Live

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

Live Orlando AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Orlando and Winter Park, Maitland, Altamonte Springs, Apopka.

Orlando is the rare large American city with no coast and no heavy industry shaping its air, and it shows: MetroPlan Orlando's own summary is that Central Florida has enjoyed air quality within federal standards, and no Florida county currently appears in the EPA's nonattainment list. The thing that actually changes the air here is fire. Florida runs one of the busiest prescribed burning programmes in the country — roughly 88,000 authorisations a year covering more than 2.1 million acres — and Orlando sits in the middle of the pine flatwoods and ranchland where much of that burning happens. When a burn and a still, damp night line up badly, the results have been lethal: on 9 January 2008, smoke from a prescribed burn that escaped containment about two kilometres away mixed with fog on Interstate 4 near mile marker 55 in Polk County and dropped visibility to zero. Seventy vehicles collided. Five people died and 38 were injured.

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.

Prescribed fire is the biggest thing in Central Florida's air

Prescribed burning is not a nuisance the state tolerates, it is deliberate policy. Florida's ecosystems evolved with frequent fire, and the Florida Forest Service issues around 88,000 burn authorisations in an average year to landowners and agencies covering more than 2.1 million acres, under Chapter 590 of the Florida Statutes and Chapter 5I-2 of the Administrative Code. The alternative is worse fires later. But the smoke is real while it is happening, and Central Florida's inland geography works against you: cool, still nights let smoke sink and pool in low ground instead of lifting away.

That is exactly what happened on I-4. A burn lit the day before got away when relative humidity dropped below what had been forecast, and overnight the smoke settled into the fog already forming along the corridor. The Polk County sheriff described it as a wall of smoke and fog. If you drive I-4, the Turnpike or SR 528 early on a cold, windless winter morning after a burn day, that combination is the specific local hazard worth respecting, and it is also the pattern that produces the worst overnight PM2.5 readings in Orlando's suburbs.

The summer Central Florida burned

The reference point everyone here over a certain age has is 1998. Between May and July that year, wildfires burned roughly 500,000 acres across Florida, with Brevard, Osceola, Orange, Seminole, St. Johns, Flagler and Volusia counties among the hardest hit. Around 10,000 firefighters were involved, more than 150 structures were destroyed, and by 4 July, 135 miles of Interstate 95 from Jacksonville to Titusville were closed. The entire population of Flagler County, about 35,000 people, was ordered to evacuate on the forecast that separate fires would merge into a single front running from Daytona to St. Augustine.

Nothing since has come close, and the prescribed burning programme is part of the reason. But it establishes what Central Florida's air is capable of when a drought lines up with the spring fire season, and it is why a smoke plume that started fifty miles away in Osceola or Volusia county is a normal thing to notice in Orlando rather than an alarming one.

Ozone, traffic, and the number that decides attainment

With no refineries and no port, Central Florida's routine pollution is mostly tailpipes. MetroPlan Orlando puts emissions from cars, trucks and boats at more than 60 percent of the region's air pollution. Ozone is the pollutant that matters most for compliance, and the way it is judged is not by the worst day. The region takes the fourth-highest eight-hour ozone reading of the year, averages it with the fourth-highest of the two previous years, and that rolling three-year figure has to stay below 70 parts per billion. Central Florida has stayed under it, which is why the region can continue its planning practices as they are rather than being forced into a federal air quality plan.

Four monitoring sites cover the region — in Winter Park, Orlando, Four Corners and Sanford — with the Winter Park site also tracking PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide. Statewide, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection says ozone and PM2.5 are the two pollutants that most commonly drive the AQI. Four regulatory monitors across a metro this spread out is a coarse net, though, which is the case for watching neighbourhood sensors alongside them.

Orlando air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Orlando today?

In Central Florida the answer is usually a prescribed burn. The Florida Forest Service authorises about 88,000 of them a year statewide, covering more than 2.1 million acres, and a great deal of that ground is the pine flatwoods and ranchland ringing Orlando. That smoke has a direction and clears within a day or so. The other possibility in summer is Saharan dust, which is not smoke at all: it hazes the entire sky evenly, has no smell, and shows up between mid-June and mid-August when plumes cross the Atlantic every three to five days. If it is winter, calm and foggy at dawn, assume burn smoke and drive accordingly.

What is the air quality in Orlando right now?

This page shows the live AQI for Orlando, calculated from PurpleAir sensors in and around the city and updated continuously. Worth being straight about coverage: Orlando has noticeably fewer public PurpleAir sensors than a comparable west coast metro, so the reading is drawn from a wider radius than usual and can lag a fast-moving smoke plume. It is still the fastest local signal available, and adding a sensor near your own home is the single best way to improve it.

How can I tell a prescribed burn from a wildfire?

Prescribed burns are planned and authorised, so they generally start in the morning, produce a plume from a fixed location, and are done by evening. They are also usually announced locally. A wildfire behaves differently — it moves, it grows through the afternoon, and it tends to come with road closures and news coverage. Practically speaking your response is the same either way: if PM2.5 near you is climbing, close the windows and keep the exercise indoors. The distinction matters mostly for how long you should expect it to last.

Is Orlando's air within federal standards?

Yes. No Florida county currently appears in the EPA's nonattainment list for any criteria pollutant, and MetroPlan Orlando's position is that Central Florida has enjoyed air quality within federal standards. Ozone compliance is measured as a three-year rolling average of the fourth-highest annual reading, which must stay below 70 parts per billion, and the region has stayed under it. That is a regional average over a year, though, not a promise about the air on your street during a burn — which is what this page is for.

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.