{"id":245400,"date":"2026-07-17T00:50:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/245400\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T00:50:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:50:21","slug":"code-purple-air-quality-alert-issued-across-pennsylvania-amid-wildfire-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/245400\/","title":{"rendered":"Code Purple air quality alert issued across Pennsylvania amid wildfire smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) \u2014 While Thursday’s air quality presented challenges for many in central Pennsylvania, state officials expect Friday to be worse.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a rare Code Purple Air Quality Alert for Friday, July 17 as wildfire smoke from Canada and the upper Midwest smother the state.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What are Code Purple and Code Maroon? Behind the air quality alerts above Code Red\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The alert applies statewide though officials said conditions could be better or worse locally.<\/p>\n

\"Kaylee<\/p>\n

Kaylee Lindenmuth \/ abc27 News \u2014 Wildfire smoke blankets Mount Carmel, Northumberland County on July 16, 2026.<\/p>\n

The Department of Environmental Protection uses the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index for alerts and purple is the second-highest on the chart.<\/a><\/p>\n

All residents, the department said said, should avoid long or intense outdoor activities and sensitive groups like children, elders, and those with respiratory illnesses should avoid all outdoor activities.<\/p>\n

Get severe weather alerts with newsletters<\/a> and push alerts<\/a> from the abc27 Weather Team<\/a><\/p>\n

The department typically issues air quality alerts based on the Air Quality Index for Pennsylvania’s heavily-populated metropolitan areas. Statewide alerts are rare and were last seen when statewide Code Red and Code Orange alerts were issued for the 2023 smoke conditions.<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) \u2014 While Thursday’s air quality presented challenges for many in central Pennsylvania, state officials expect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30257,28,30,29,11987,88713],"class_list":["post-245400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-air-quality","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state-officials","tag-wildfire-smoke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}