\u201cThose are people who are already affected by day-to-day air pollution, and the wildfires are pollution on steroids,\u201d said Angelo Taranto, a board member of Allegheny County Clean Air Now (ACCAN).<\/p>\n
The combination raises two questions for a region that cannot prevent smoke from traveling: How can residents protect themselves when it arrives, and how much can local officials reduce the pollution already in Pittsburgh\u2019s air?<\/p>\n
A dangerous layer on top<\/p>\n
Even before the wildfire smoke reached the region, many Allegheny County residents were breathing air that put their health at risk.<\/p>\n
Asthma rates are consistently higher in Pittsburgh than in many other cities, with some of the greatest burdens in Mon Valley communities near major industrial facilities. According to Allegheny County Health Department data, the share of adults reporting asthma increased from 9% in 2017 to 16% in 2022.<\/p>\n
Children in the Mon Valley have nearly three times the national rate of asthma, according to a recent study<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Taranto said ACCAN hears from residents whose respiratory problems became noticeably worse after moving to the Pittsburgh area.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the cases that stand out are people who have moved here from out of town and, for the first time, experienced this air pollution,\u201d he said. People who already used inhalers, he added, sometimes found themselves relying on them much more frequently than they had elsewhere.<\/p>\n The Clairton Coke Works, operated by U.S. Steel, is the region\u2019s largest source of industrial air pollution.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhile air quality in Southwestern Pennsylvania is influenced by many sources and conditions across the region, U.S. Steel remains focused on the areas within our control,\u201d said a spokesperson for U.S. Steel in a statement to Public Source. \u201cIn addition, our Mon Valley Works facilities maintain a more than 99% compliance rate.\u201d<\/p>\n “The wildfires are pollution on steroids.”<\/p>\n Angelo taranto, Allegheny County Clean Air now<\/p>\n Dr. Sally Wenzel, a University of Pittsburgh department chair and director of UPMC\u2019s Asthma Environmental Lung Health Institute, said extreme air quality events, such as those caused by wildfires, exacerbate respiratory disease symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, she said cardiovascular events like heart attacks become more common under pollution stress.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of those things can be worsened by exposure to high levels of pollution, enough to send you to the doctor’s office or the emergency room,\u201d Wenzel said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wildfire smoke contains fine particulate matter that can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. For people whose respiratory systems are already strained, a sudden increase can trigger asthma attacks and other serious problems.<\/p>\n \u201cThe size of the particles is important, the intensity of the exposure is important and the duration of the exposure is really critical,” Wenzel said.<\/p>\n Asthma-related emergency room visits in the United States were 17% higher than the average during the wildfire smoke episodes of summer 2023, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\u00a0<\/p>\n Albert Presto, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who studies air quality, said Pittsburgh has experienced three major wildfire-smoke events since 2021, with increasingly severe effects.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the climate warms, the chances for wildfires go up. The chances for those wildfires to be large go up,\u201d Presto said. \u201cYou would expect that, in a warming world, you would get more of these fires.\u201d<\/p>\n Aarushi Pant, executive director of ACCAN, said those events compound an unequal health burden already carried by communities near industrial facilities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe burden is often put on local communities, communities of color, while they are already facing these issues,\u201d Pant said. \u201cWildfire smoke just builds on top of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Temperature inversions, in which warm air traps pollution close to the ground, occur nearly one out of every three days in Allegheny County, according to Ana Hoffman, CREATE Lab air quality program director. Wildfire smoke is less frequent, but it can turn that persistent pollution burden into an acute health threat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe wildfire smoke definitely adds stress on top of the already moderate air quality that Pittsburgh has,\u201d Pant said.<\/p>\n Protection is not equally available<\/p>\n The most effective way to reduce the risk from wildfire smoke is also the simplest: Avoid breathing it.<\/p>\n County officials and air quality experts advise residents to stay indoors, close windows and doors, and filter the air inside their homes. Anyone who must work or spend time outside should wear a well-fitting N95 mask.<\/p>\n But it isn\u2019t just outdoor workers who may find those recommendations challenging.<\/p>\n People without central air conditioning may have to choose between opening their windows and enduring dangerous indoor heat, particularly when wildfire smoke coincides with a heat wave. Air purifiers and upgraded HVAC filters also carry costs that some households cannot easily absorb.<\/p>\n Presto said even relatively modest filtration improvements can make a meaningful difference.<\/p>\n \u201cPaying for the more expensive filter for your air conditioner or your furnace actually makes a difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Whole-home filtration systems are among the most expensive options. Standalone air purifiers can clean the air in a single room, while a lower-cost alternative can be built by attaching a high-efficiency filter to a box fan.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s simply a box fan, a very good air filter taped to a box fan. It\u2019s called a MERV 13 filter,\u201d Taranto said. \u201cPutting that together is probably less than $100.\u201d<\/p>\n People with asthma and other respiratory conditions should be especially cautious during hazardous-air days, Pant said. In addition to limiting outdoor exposure and wearing an N95, they said wearing goggles adds another layer of protection.<\/p>\n Reducing the pollution Pittsburgh can control<\/p>\n Allegheny County cannot stop smoke from Canadian wildfires from entering the region. It can, however, regulate the local pollution that mixes with it.<\/p>\n The county health department monitors air quality, enforces local air pollution regulations and can penalize facilities that violate emissions limits.<\/p>\n Clairton Coke Works, which is owned by US Steel, has faced numerous multimillion dollar fines for excessive emissions.<\/a><\/p>\n In 2021, Allegheny County adopted the Mon Valley Air Pollution Episode Rule<\/a>. It requires certain industrial facilities to reduce emissions when weather conditions are expected to trap pollution in the Mon Valley. During the July wildfires, U.S. Steel said that it complied with the rule<\/a>, which requires it to curb activity to decrease pollution.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile that rule cannot prevent pollution from wildfire smoke traveling hundreds or thousands of miles, it helps reduce local emissions during periods when air quality is already poor,\u201d the Allegheny County Health Department wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n Cilia Catello is an editorial intern at Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source. She can be reached at cilia@publicsource.org.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/pittsburgh-air-pollution-health-risk-elevated-wildfire-smoke\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/www.publicsource.org”>Pittsburgh’s Public Source<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/cropped-ps_circle_favicon_blue.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=1336224&ga4=G-CCLXQK5C14″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/pittsburgh-air-pollution-health-risk-elevated-wildfire-smoke\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/publicsource.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Cilia Catello, Pittsburgh’s Public Source August 10, 2026 The wildfire smoke that blanketed Pittsburgh in July has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-262744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262744","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=262744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260717-Air-Quality-Alert-Pittsburgh-08.jpg\")
The church steeples of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church stand out against the skies of white smoke from the Canadian wildfires on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Polish Hill. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source)<\/p>\n