The West Coast has the worst air quality on Earth right now, as nearly 100 active wildfires — including three of California's four biggest ever recorded — spew smoke.
Particulate matter from the smoke has made the air unhealthy to breathe all along the coast, as this map from air-quality monitoring company PurpleAir shows.
The numbers in the colored circles indicate the air quality index (AQI) detected by various monitoring sensors across the country. AQI is a metric measuring the level of pollutants in the air and how hazardous those levels are to human health, as determined by guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency.
A higher AQI indicates more pollutants in the air and a greater health hazard. The EPA considers any AQI above 150 to be unhealthy for all people. Anything above 300 is considered a "health warning of emergency conditions."
The EPA does not make recommendations for AQI levels above 500, since they're "beyond index."
But PurpleAir's monitors around Salem, Oregon, reported AQIs as high as 758 on Friday morning.
by Morgan McFall-Johnsen, Yahoo News/Insider | Read more:
Image: PurpleAir
