Bad Air Days in Bethel, Alaska: 1 a Year

1 bad air day a year

Fewer bad air days than most monitored US counties. Ranked 669 of 996 monitored counties, where 1 is worst.

What makes them bad: mostly particles: smoke and dust (100% particle days).

The bad-air season here

Most bad days here fall in July. Averaged over 2016 to 2025.

What actually helps here

Bad air days are rare here. A standard furnace filter is enough; no purifier needed for outdoor air.
On the odd bad day, check AirNow and keep windows shut.

The worst days on file

The worst recent year was 2019, with 2 bad days on 317 monitored days.

Date	AQI	Main pollutant
2019-07-08	185	PM2.5
2019-07-07	119	PM2.5
2018-10-28	77	PM10
2019-11-04	73	PM10
2019-07-09	68	PM2.5

An ordinary day in Bethel

Across 686 monitored days from 2018 to 2020, the air in Bethel rated Good on 96% of them, more often than the 72% typical of monitored counties, and Moderate on 3%. The median day sat at AQI 13; one day in ten went above 32.

The pollutant setting the AQI on an ordinary day here:

fine particles (PM2.5)58%399 days
coarse dust (PM10)42%287 days

Bethel by year

Year	Days monitored	Good	Moderate	Over 100	Over 150	Median AQI	Highest AQI
2020	167	165	2	0	0	7	56
2019	317	302	13	2	1	13	185
2018	202	194	8	0	0	19	77

Alaska compared

How this is counted

A bad air day is a day the county's daily AQI from EPA AirData went above 100, the level where EPA tells children, older adults and people with asthma or heart disease to cut back outdoors. Monitors do not run every day, so yearly counts are scaled to 365 days. This is the record, not today's air: for that, check AirNow. More on the method in how the county numbers are made, on the AQI 100 line in what counts as a bad air day.