Air Quality in Santa Rosa, California — Live
Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Santa Rosa — with free alerts the moment smoke moves in.
Live Santa Rosa AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park, Windsor, Sebastopol, Kenwood.
Most of the year, Santa Rosa's air is genuinely good. But anyone who has lived through a Sonoma County fire season knows how fast that can change — clear skies at breakfast, smoke by dinner.
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.
Santa Rosa knows wildfire smoke
The Tubbs Fire burned into the city itself in October 2017, destroying homes in Coffey Park and Fountaingrove and leaving Santa Rosa under hazardous smoke for weeks. Three years later the Glass Fire came over the Mayacamas into the city's eastern edge near Skyhawk and Oakmont.
And even fires that never reach the city can dominate its air. The Kincade Fire in 2019 and the LNU Lightning Complex in 2020 both filled the Santa Rosa plain with smoke from miles away. That's the recurring lesson here: smoke doesn't respect fire perimeters, and the evacuation map tells you nothing about what you're breathing.
Smoke season runs roughly August through November
Fall is when offshore Diablo winds arrive — hot, dry gusts out of the north and east that drive the county's most dangerous fires. On those days the AQI can swing from Good to Very Unhealthy overnight.
A single citywide number also hides a lot. Smoke settles unevenly across the Santa Rosa plain, so Bennett Valley, Coffey Park, and Roseland can be breathing noticeably different air at the same moment. That's why Canairy reads the dense network of PurpleAir sensors across the city instead of one distant monitoring station — the reading you see comes from sensors near the places you actually saved.
What to actually do on a smoke day
Check the air before you commit to outdoor plans, not after your throat starts to itch. Close windows early — once smoke is indoors it takes hours to clear. If someone in your house has asthma, is pregnant, is a kid, or is over 65, it's worth knowing your number before the sky looks bad, because fine smoke particles do their damage well before the air smells like a campfire.
Canairy is built by two people in Sonoma County who have lived through these seasons — it exists so you don't have to keep refreshing a map in October. Set your threshold once, and we'll tell you when the air crosses it, and when it clears.
Santa Rosa air quality FAQ
What is the air quality in Santa Rosa right now?
This page shows the current AQI for Santa Rosa, 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 does Santa Rosa get smoky in late summer and fall?
August through November is Northern California's peak fire season, and fall Diablo winds — hot, dry offshore gusts — have driven Sonoma County's most destructive fires, including the Tubbs Fire in 2017 and the Kincade Fire in 2019. Smoke from fires anywhere in the region can settle over the Santa Rosa plain, even when the fire itself is far away.
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 Santa Rosa data come from?
Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Santa Rosa and surrounding Sonoma County towns, 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.