Wildfires in Los Angeles drive air pollution to its worst in five years

Los Angeles is battling severe wildfires. As of Jan. 9, there was no containment in sight. There were at least five deaths and over 100,000 people were forced to evacuate as entire neighborhoods were wiped out.

CEIC provides global air quality data at a granular, city-by-city level. Our chart shows how the smoke will worsen over the weekend, with expected air pollution reaching a five-year high.

According to daily air pollution forecast data by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), the concentration of fine inhalable particles with diameters of 2.5 micrometers or less (PM 2.5) will reach 172 micrograms per cubic meter on Jan. 11. That's the highest since September 2020, when the Bobcat fire was ravaging California.

The concentration of larger PM 10 particles is also expected to jump to a five-year high on Saturday. Nitrogen dioxide levels will also increase substantially over the weekend, reaching levels unseen since early 2023.

Air quality will be much worse than World Health Organization guidelines. A mean level of 15 mcg per cubic meter of PM 2.5 over 24 hours is considered unsafe by the WHO – less than one-tenth of the predicted level. The WHO thresholds for PM10, ozone and nitrogen dioxide have been set at 45, 60 and 25 mcg per cubic meter, respectively.

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