Air Quality in Reno, Nevada — Live
Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Reno — with free alerts the moment the air turns.
AQI 14 from 4 PurpleAir sensors · Holding steady · data from PurpleAir
As of , the air quality in Reno, Nevada is AQI 14 — Good and holding steady — with PM2.5 at 2.6 µg/m³, the median of 4 live PurpleAir sensors reading 7 to 30. 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 Reno: 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 Reno and Sparks, Sun Valley, Spanish Springs, Verdi, Washoe Valley, Carson City. Every dot is a real sensor, color-coded by current air quality.
Sensor by sensor in Reno
The sensors Canairy reads in Reno agree right now — all 4 sit in the Good band, a 23-point spread — so the city-wide number is a fair description of the whole area today.
| From city center | AQI | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 0.9 mi WSW | 9 | Good |
| 3.0 mi SW | 30 | Good |
| 4.3 mi SW | 7 | Good |
| 6.5 mi ENE | 19 | Good |
Reno sits in the Truckee Meadows, a valley bounded on the west by the Carson Range, on the east by the Virginia Range and the Pine Nut Mountains, on the south by the Steamboat Hills and on the north by Peavine Peak, with the Truckee River running through it from west to east. That western wall is the Sierra Nevada, and it is why Reno's air is so often decided by fires burning in California rather than by anything happening in Nevada. The agency that calls the alerts is Northern Nevada Public Health — it was the Washoe County Health District until it changed its name on 31 August 2023, so both names still turn up in older coverage.
What Canairy does for Reno
A clear verdict
Not just a number — a plain-English call for Reno: 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 Reno or across the country, on one screen.
August 2021, when the smoke did not lift
The Dixie Fire started on 13 July 2021 and burned until 25 October, covering 963,309 acres across Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta and Tehama counties — the largest single-source wildfire in recorded California history — and destroying about 75 percent of the town of Greenville. While it was still going, the Caldor Fire ignited on 14 August in El Dorado County, and on 30 August became only the second fire known to have crossed the Sierra Nevada crest, forcing the evacuation of all 22,000 residents of South Lake Tahoe at 10:59 that morning.
Reno breathed the result. On 23 August 2021 the health district issued its first-ever Stage 3 air quality emergency episode, triggered when the PM2.5 AQI exceeded 200 across a 24-hour period from Sunday into Monday. Residents were told to stay inside and avoid outdoor activity, keep all windows and doors closed, create a clean air room, and consult a doctor with any heart or lung concerns. The next day, Washoe County recorded a PM2.5 AQI of 291 and a PM10 AQI of 183 — both records in two decades of monitoring. The county's own summary of the moment is the part that stays with you: the top ten worst PM2.5 daily averages had all occurred within the preceding eleven months.
Smoke does not need a big fire, or a distant one
Not every smoke day is a 2021. On 4 September 2024 Northern Nevada Public Health issued an air quality advisory for the Reno-Sparks area because of the Bear Fire, burning roughly 25 miles west of Reno — close enough that a moderate fire was enough to push the forecast from Moderate into Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.
The advice NNPH gives is practical and worth keeping in mind before the season starts: sensitive groups should limit outdoor activity and stay indoors, keep windows and doors shut, and skip the indoor things that add particles of their own — vacuuming, candles, frying food, smoking. Setting up a clean air room in advance is easier than improvising one while the sky is orange.
Winter is a different pollutant with the same geography
The basin that traps smoke in August traps woodsmoke in January. Cold air settles into the Truckee Meadows under a layer of warmer air above it, and whatever is being burned underneath stays put. Wood burning accounts for around 40 percent of wintertime fine particulate matter in the Truckee Meadows — not a rounding error, and not something a distant fire can be blamed for.
That is why Northern Nevada Public Health runs a daily burn code from 1 November through the end of February. Green means burning is allowed, yellow means it is discouraged, and red means it is prohibited. You can check the day's code at OurCleanAir.com or by calling 775-785-4110 before you light a fire.
Reno air quality FAQ
What is the air quality in Reno right now?
As of September 11, 2026 at 1:20 AM PDT, the air quality in Reno, Nevada is AQI 14 — Good — with PM2.5 at 2.6 µg/m³, the median of 4 live PurpleAir sensors. Open the windows. Great for outdoor activity.
Why is there smoke in Reno today?
Usually a wildfire on the California side of the Sierra, and it does not have to be close. In August 2021 the Caldor Fire in El Dorado County and the Dixie Fire in Northern California together drove Washoe County to its first-ever Stage 3 air quality emergency, with a record PM2.5 AQI of 291 on 24 August. But smaller and nearer fires do it too — in September 2024 the Bear Fire burning about 25 miles west of Reno was enough for Northern Nevada Public Health to issue an advisory forecasting air quality up to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. In winter, a smoky smell is more likely to be woodsmoke held down by an inversion than a wildfire.
How bad does Reno smoke actually get?
At its worst, hazardous. On 23 August 2021 the health district declared its first Stage 3 air quality emergency episode after the PM2.5 AQI stayed above 200 for a full 24 hours, telling everyone to stay indoors, keep windows and doors closed and set up a clean air room. The following day Washoe County logged a PM2.5 AQI of 291 and a PM10 AQI of 183, both records across roughly twenty years of monitoring, and the ten worst PM2.5 days on record had all fallen within the previous eleven months.
Can I burn wood in my fireplace in Reno?
It depends on the day. Northern Nevada Public Health runs a daily burn code from 1 November through the end of February, because wood burning is responsible for around 40 percent of wintertime fine particulate matter in the Truckee Meadows. Green means burning is allowed, yellow means it is discouraged, and red means it is prohibited. Check the day's code at OurCleanAir.com or call 775-785-4110.
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 4 curated PurpleAir sensors Canairy tracks in and around Reno, 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 Reno
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