Air Quality in Richmond, Virginia — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Richmond — with free alerts when ozone or wildfire smoke pushes the air past healthy.

Live Richmond AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Richmond and Henrico, Chesterfield, Hopewell, Petersburg.

Richmond's air is good most of the year — this is a humid, green city on the James River, not an industrial basin, and there's no chronic smog problem hanging over it day to day. The exception that actually put Richmond in the news was June 2023, when smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Canada drifted down and pushed the city into conditions nobody here had planned for.

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.

Richmond's worst air day in memory wasn't local at all

On June 8, 2023, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management placed Richmond's air quality in its 'Red Zone' as smoke from wildfires burning across Quebec and Ontario settled over the city. AQI readings hit around 180 downtown and in parts of Chesterfield County, and climbed toward 200 in Henrico County — compared with the high 40s on the same date a year earlier. University of Richmond environmental scientist Todd Lookingbill put the jump in plain terms at the time: once you're over 150, he said, that's when it moves into an unhealthy condition for the general public.

The American Lung Association's own 2025 State of the Air report later pointed to that same event directly, noting that 2023 wildfire smoke was a factor in Richmond dropping from a B to a C grade for short-term particle pollution and sliding to 98th-worst in the country for it. That's the pattern worth knowing here: Richmond's day-to-day air is genuinely fine, but a fire thousands of miles away can still turn a clear Thursday into a red-zone Thursday by dinnertime.

Summer heat at the fall line brings its own ozone problem

Richmond sits right at the James River's fall line, where the rolling Piedmont gives way to the flat Tidewater — a spot that also means hot, humid, often still summer air with little to push it out. Those are close to the ideal conditions for cooking vehicle exhaust and other emissions into ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in summer smog, on the stickiest afternoons.

It shows up in the numbers: the American Lung Association's 2026 State of the Air report gave the Richmond metro a B for ozone, but noted the region's national ranking actually worsened, from 165th- to 143rd-worst for it. Traffic funneling through the I-95/I-64/I-295 interchange downtown is a steady contributor, and on the most windless July and August days, ozone — not smoke — is usually the reason behind a Richmond air quality alert.

A new gas plant near Dutch Gap is the region's next air-quality fight

In December 2025, Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality granted an air permit for Dominion Energy's Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center — a $1.47 billion, 944-megawatt gas-fired peaker plant proposed for southern Chesterfield County near the Dutch Gap conservation area, just south of Richmond. It's meant to add generating capacity alongside the site of the former coal-burning Chesterfield Power Station.

The permit didn't go through quietly: Appalachian Voices, the NAACP, and Mothers Out Front all opposed it, and a petition asking the State Corporation Commission to reconsider the project was still pending as of mid-December 2025. Whatever the outcome, it's a reminder that Richmond's air isn't only shaped by wildfire smoke drifting in from Canada or a hot, still July afternoon — permitting decisions a few miles south of downtown matter too.

Richmond air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Richmond right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Richmond, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the city and updated continuously. The map below shows every live sensor, so you can check the reading closest to your own neighborhood.

Why did Richmond's air quality get so bad in June 2023?

Smoke from wildfires burning in Quebec and Ontario drifted south and settled over central Virginia, pushing Richmond's AQI to around 180 downtown and toward 200 in Henrico County on June 8, 2023 — compared with the high 40s on the same date a year before. Virginia's Department of Emergency Management classified it a 'Red Zone' day, and the American Lung Association later cited that smoke as a factor in Richmond's particle-pollution grade slipping from a B to a C.

Why does Richmond get ozone alerts in summer?

Richmond sits at the James River's fall line in the Piedmont, where hot, humid, often still summer afternoons let vehicle exhaust and other emissions cook into ground-level ozone instead of blowing through. The American Lung Association's 2026 report gave the metro a B for ozone but noted its national ranking actually worsened year over year, and traffic through the I-95/I-64/I-295 interchange is a steady contributor on the worst days.

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.

Where does Canairy's Richmond data come from?

Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Richmond and surrounding towns like Henrico and Chesterfield, cross-referenced with government monitors and the Google Air Quality API. You can see every sensor behind your numbers on the live map - there's no black box.

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.