What we can do about wildfire smoke

Bad air? – Don’t care?

It seems to me that having wildfire smoke in our lives has lately become just an everyday issue.

For example, our air quality right now, July 15, 2025 at 9:00am, here in Ottawa today is not great. The air looks a little smoky and smells a bit too but we’re getting any public warnings or media stories on the subject. So is everything OK now? Can I just go outside and do whatever it is that I want? That ‘look’ results from forest fires burning nearby in Ontario and perhaps further west. That sort of thing really was bad news before. Now? Well, maybe not so much.

How bad is the air right now, say in Ottawa? That is Tuesday, July 15, 2025 at about 11:00am? One can check the air quality levels for Ottawa (and other Ontario locations) on the provincial government website.

If one scrolls down to Ottawa and looked at the PM2.5 scale, today, July 15 at11:00am, it was reading 45.

Is 45 a high reading? I recently led a project to measure air quality in Ottawa for the Sierra Club Canada Foundation. I never saw a PM2.5 reading, anywhere across the city that was over 60. Last year in Ottawa, we had PM2.5 readings for PM2.5 at 245 making it then, perhaps one of the most polluted major cities on earth.

Anyway, what are our health authorities telling us today? Not a lot. They should be doing more. Based on what I know about air pollution, people should not be spending much if any time outdoors right now unless they absolutely have to, and if so, to at least get out a well-fitting Covid mask to wear when they’re out there.

What can we do?

If staying at home, people should keep their doors and windows closed. If possible, they should run their furnace blower, if they have one, and ensure that they have a good, high quality, clean filter on it. That will help somewhat, to clear the air in their home. Try to limit any appliances that pull air out of the home, like a clothes dryer, as that will just pull in the polluted air from outside.

Another idea is to get a box fan, buy a filter that fits exactly on it, tape the filter on the inlet side of the fan, and run it continuously. I have one going now I found that it did markedly reduce the level of PM2.5 in the house to a more healthy level, about 5 on the PM2.5 scale in about 12 hours. See the photo below. The darkened filter on the left was used for two days when air pollution levels were high. compare that with the newly installed filter. think what those particles may look like in your lungs!

For more information about the idea, check this CBC broadcast.

Canadian Tire and other home stores sell these fans and filters like the ones I have.

Am I overreacting to this situation? Unfortunately, we are likely to see more and more of these ‘bad air days’ in Ottawa and across our country in the future. Maybe it’s time we started to take more seriously, the impact we are having on our climate and our ability to withstand the way our world is responding to that impact. Or do we just wait for the next ‘real’ bad air day?

Article by Jake Cole, Former Environment Director, Canadian Coast Guard, Former National Manager, Canada’s R-2000 Home Program, and Former Canadian Representative for Renewable Energy Projects with the International Energy Agency.

P.S. Check out this resource for air quality readings in other Canadian locations.