Air Quality in Redding, California — Live
Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Redding — with free alerts the moment smoke moves in.
AQI 18 from 5 PurpleAir sensors · Holding steady · data from PurpleAir
As of , the air quality in Redding, California is AQI 18 — Good and holding steady — with PM2.5 at 3.3 µg/m³, the median of 5 live PurpleAir sensors reading 0 to 20. Canairy's verdict: Breathe easy.
For scale, that PM2.5 reading is below the World Health Organization's 24-hour guideline of 15 µg/m³. The WHO figure is a daily average and this is a live reading, so read it as a sense of magnitude rather than a formal exceedance — a brief spike and a bad day are not the same thing. More on the WHO guidelines
Pollen today in Redding: weeds pollen is the strongest of the three at a low level, from Google's pollen forecast. Canairy shows the tree, grass and weed forecast beside the air reading on every plan, including the free one.
Free to download · Live data from PurpleAir & public monitors
Live PurpleAir sensor map for Redding and Anderson, Shasta Lake, Palo Cedro, Cottonwood. Every dot is a real sensor, color-coded by current air quality.
Sensor by sensor in Redding
The sensors Canairy reads in Redding agree right now — all 5 sit in the Good band, a 20-point spread — so the city-wide number is a fair description of the whole area today.
| From city center | AQI | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 2.0 mi W | 14 | Good |
| 2.0 mi SSW | 0 | Good |
| 2.3 mi ESE | 18 | Good |
| 2.7 mi ENE | 20 | Good |
| 5.7 mi SE | 18 | Good |
Redding sits at the head of the Sacramento Valley, where the mountains close in and both heat and smoke tend to settle. The city has lived through some of Northern California's worst fire days in recent memory, from the 2018 Carr Fire that crossed the Sacramento River into its western neighborhoods to the Fawn Fire that pushed toward town in 2021, and the wood smoke that hangs over the valley through the cold months.
What Canairy does for Redding
A clear verdict
Not just a number — a plain-English call for Redding: open the windows, or keep them shut.
Smoke alerts
A push or text the moment the air crosses your threshold — and again when it clears.
A heads-up before it's bad
Trend alerts catch the air turning, so you can close up the house before the smoke settles in.
Every place you care about
Home, work, the kids' school — across Redding or across the country, on one screen.
The Carr Fire burned into Redding itself
Most fire seasons keep the flames in the hills, but in July 2018 the Carr Fire came into the city. It started west of Redding on July 23, and on July 26 it jumped the Sacramento River into western neighborhoods, forcing mandatory evacuations and destroying homes on the edge of town. By the time it was contained at the end of August it had burned 229,651 acres across Shasta and Trinity counties, destroyed 1,604 structures, and killed eight people.
That same evening the fire spun up a genuine fire tornado, a rotating column with winds estimated at 154 miles per hour, the equivalent of an EF3, that reached some 18,000 feet into the sky. It killed four people, including a Redding fire marshal. For weeks afterward the smoke that column threw off sat over the city, and for many residents it reset what a bad air day in Redding can look like.
Smoke pools at the top of the valley
Redding sits where the Sacramento Valley narrows to its northern end, ringed by mountains on three sides. When fires burn anywhere in the North State, that bowl works against the city: smoke drifts in and has nowhere easy to go, and strong northerly winds routinely funnel smoke down from fires near the Oregon border into the valley. On hot, still summer days it can settle and linger rather than clear out.
This is why an air quality reading in Redding can turn poor even when the nearest fire is a long way off. The valley collects smoke from every direction, and summer heat, which regularly climbs past 100 degrees here, keeps the air stagnant. A sensor a few blocks from your house will often tell you more about what you are actually breathing than a regional forecast will.
Winter brings a different kind of smoke
The fire season gets the headlines, but Redding's air can also turn poor in the dead of winter, and the source is closer to home. The Shasta County Air Quality Management District reports that the highest particulate readings often come during the wood stove and open burning season, roughly October through April, when cold air traps wood smoke from home fireplaces and older stoves near the ground.
The district runs a Woodsmoke Reduction Program that offers vouchers to help residents replace non-certified wood stoves and inserts with cleaner EPA-certified devices. On a cold, calm evening the fine particles from a neighborhood's chimneys can build up the same way summer wildfire smoke does, which is why a nearby sensor is worth checking in January as much as in August.
Redding air quality FAQ
What is the air quality in Redding right now?
As of September 5, 2026 at 8:37 AM PDT, the air quality in Redding, California is AQI 18 — Good — with PM2.5 at 3.3 µg/m³, the median of 5 live PurpleAir sensors. Open the windows. Great for outdoor activity.
Why does Redding's air get so smoky in summer?
Redding sits at the northern head of the Sacramento Valley, ringed by mountains, so smoke from wildfires across the North State drifts in and tends to pool rather than clear. Northerly winds also funnel smoke down the valley from fires near the Oregon border, and summer heat that regularly tops 100 degrees keeps the air stagnant. The 2018 Carr Fire, which burned into western Redding and left the city under heavy smoke for weeks, is the sharpest example.
Is wood smoke a problem in Redding in the winter?
Yes. The Shasta County Air Quality Management District reports that some of the highest particulate readings come during the wood stove and open burning season, roughly October through April, when cold, still air traps smoke from home fireplaces and older stoves near the ground. The district runs a Woodsmoke Reduction Program with vouchers to help residents swap non-certified stoves for cleaner EPA-certified ones. A nearby sensor is worth checking on cold winter evenings, not just during fire season.
What the AQI numbers mean
| AQI | Category | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 0–50 | Good | Open the windows. Great for outdoor activity. |
| 51–100 | Moderate | Sensitive groups may want to take it slower outside. |
| 101–150 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | Kids, elderly, and respiratory conditions stay closer to home. |
| 151–200 | Unhealthy | Skip outdoor exercise. Close windows. |
| 201–300 | Very Unhealthy | Limit time outside. N95 if you must go. |
| 301+ | Hazardous | Health emergency. Stay inside, run filtration if you have it. |
Canairy lets you tighten these bands if you’re more sensitive than the EPA default, so an alert can fire before the official category changes. How to read the Air Quality Index
Where these readings come from
The AQI at the top of this page is the median of the 5 curated PurpleAir sensors Canairy tracks in and around Redding, with outliers set aside so that one sensor brought indoors — or parked beside a barbecue — cannot set the number for a whole city. Every sensor behind it is listed above with its distance and bearing from the city center. There is no black box here.
In the app, a place you save resolves the same way first. When no neighborhood sensor is reporting it falls back to the nearest EPA AirNow monitor, and anything modeled rather than measured is labelled a regional estimate rather than passed off as a sensor reading. How low-cost sensors compare to regulatory monitors
About Canairy
Canairy is free to download. The free plan covers one saved place with live readings, a plain-English verdict, and push alerts when the air crosses a threshold you choose. Paid plans add more places, faster refreshes, and SMS alerts. It is built by two parents in Sonoma County, California, who got tired of guessing whether it was safe to send the kids outside. Why we built it
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Air quality near Redding
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