Air Quality in Vancouver, Washington — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Vancouver — with free alerts the moment smoke moves down the Gorge.

Live Vancouver AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Vancouver and Camas, Washougal, Battle Ground, Ridgefield.

Vancouver sits on the north bank of the Columbia River in Clark County, directly across from Portland, and it shares that metro's air whether it wants to or not. The difference is who watches it: the Southwest Clean Air Agency runs the monitors on this side, and on an ordinary summer afternoon they read Good. Vancouver's air problems are episodic rather than daily, and there are three of them — wildfire smoke in late summer and early fall, wood smoke on cold still winter nights, and the Columbia River Gorge, the only major gap in the Cascades in either state, which opens at the city's eastern doorstep and funnels east wind, weather and smoke straight down the corridor.

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.

September 2020 is the week people here still measure against

The Labor Day fires put Southwest Washington under some of the worst air in the state's monitoring record. Between September 12 and 17, every single air quality monitor in Washington recorded particulate pollution above the federal 24-hour standard — the most days that Washington's PM2.5 monitors have recorded hazardous air going back to 2000, with most of the state seeing at least five consecutive days of very unhealthy or hazardous conditions.

Southwest Washington and Clark County were named among the worst-affected regions, and the Columbia River Gorge had the dirtiest air in the state. The smoke came from the Oregon fires — Lionshead, Beachie Creek and Riverside, roughly half a million acres between them — plus Big Hollow and others on the Washington side. Rain on the 17th began to clear it and the event ended around the 21st.

The Gorge is Vancouver's weather machine

The Columbia River Gorge is the only major gap through the Cascades in Oregon or Washington, and when high pressure builds east of the mountains the air accelerates through it. Easterly gorge flow is the local signature: research published in Weather and Forecasting found that at least 56 percent of annual snowfall, 70 percent of days with snowfall and 90 percent of days with freezing rain at Portland International Airport coincide with it.

The same corridor delivers smoke. On September 2, 2017, fireworks thrown into Eagle Creek Canyon during an active burn ban started the Eagle Creek Fire. It burned about 50,000 acres, closed Interstate 84 for weeks, jumped the Columbia into Washington near Archer Mountain, and on September 4 and 5 dropped up to an inch of ash on the Portland and Vancouver metro, pushing air quality to unhealthy and closing schools. It was not declared contained until November 30.

Fires burn on this side too, and winter is a different pollutant

In October 2022 the Nakia Creek Fire started on Larch Mountain northeast of Camas, about twenty miles from downtown Vancouver. It sat at around 150 acres for a week, then ran to roughly 2,000 acres in a matter of hours under high wind and low humidity. Nearly 3,000 homes went under evacuation orders and air quality reached unhealthy levels in parts of Clark County.

Winter is a different story entirely. The Southwest Clean Air Agency runs a wood smoke reduction program across Vancouver, Battle Ground, Camas, Washougal, Ridgefield, La Center and Woodland, because in much of Washington wintertime wood burning is the single largest source of fine particle pollution — ahead of vehicles and industry. Incomplete combustion puts carbon monoxide, benzene and formaldehyde into the smoke along with the particles.

Vancouver air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Vancouver, WA today?

In late summer and early fall, usually wildfire smoke — from Oregon across the river, from the Cascades, or from a fire on the Washington side like Nakia Creek in 2022. Check which way the wind is coming from: an east wind out of the Columbia River Gorge behaves very differently from a north or west flow. In winter, smoke on a cold still night is far more likely to be residential wood burning trapped under an inversion, which is why the local agency issues burn bans.

What is the air quality in Vancouver, WA right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Vancouver, Washington, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the area and updated continuously. Readings in Clark County can differ a lot between Salmon Creek, downtown and Camas, so the map below shows every live sensor.

Is this the same as Vancouver, BC?

No. This page is Vancouver, Washington — Clark County, on the north bank of the Columbia River directly across from Portland, Oregon. Vancouver, British Columbia is a different city about three hundred miles north in Canada, in a different airshed with a different agency watching it. Canairy has a separate page for that one.

Does Portland's air affect Vancouver?

Yes — the river is a state line, not an air barrier, and Vancouver is part of the Portland metropolitan area. Smoke, inversions and stagnant-air episodes generally cover both sides at once. What differs is who measures and regulates it: in Clark County that is the Southwest Clean Air Agency and Washington's Department of Ecology, so alerts, burn bans and monitor data come from Washington sources.

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.