In the summer of 2023, an eerie and persistent haze covered the skies along the entire East Coast following a Record wildfire season in Quebec. New York City’s air quality index reached a dangerous level of 465 as the smoke finally reached cities such as Boston, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. More than 350 million people were exposed to record levels of unhealthy air before it finally cleared up.
Canada is fighting hundreds of forest fires again this year. Shifting winds are directing wildfire smoke once again across the U.S., prompting alerts in cities outside regions typically associated with wildfire risk. Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit (where I live) are among the cities most impacted at this time.
If you’re like me and suffer from sinus pressure and allergies, you can feel the effects of these air quality alerts, even indoors. When you have to be away from home during an alert, here are three tricks I use to minimize the impact of poor air quality on my vehicle.
Check the air quality index
Try to do everything in one trip if possible.
EPA’s AirNow tool pulls readings from official monitoring stations across the country and converts them into a simple color-coded score for your ZIP code. Works like a website airnow.gov and as a free application for iPhone and Android.
In the case of the screenshot above, I know that in Detroit right now, where I live, the situation is exceptionally bad. If there is a similar alert where you live and you can, try to do your errands at another time. In it interest in better fuel economyI combine my errands and shopping into one trip, but I find that strategy also helps when air quality alerts are forecast.
Several states also have their own air quality trackers, often with monitoring specific to a given location and even at the neighborhood level. For example, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality publishes a daily overview for metropolitan areas throughout the Lone Star State, as well as the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
You can also search for “air quality (of your state),” which should bring up a more local option, if one exists.
Check your cabin air filter
Look for a “MERV-13 equivalent” rating
Nearly every vehicle sold in the past two decades has a cabin air filter, hidden behind the glove box or under the hood, that traps dust, pollen and other particles before they reach the air vents. Lingering smoke from wildfires, plus a normal day of dust and pollen, can shorten the life of your cabin air filter.
In the dash cam footage above, you can see me driving around the Detroit metro, including merging onto I-696. The sky is hazy and gray, and you can feel it in your lungs the moment you step outside, even if it’s just a short walk to your car.
If your cabin air filter hasn’t been replaced in a year or more, or you can’t remember when you last changed it, now is a good time. You can do it yourself at home or have your mechanic replace it next time you’re out. for an oil change.
Your home fights the same battle against wildfire smoke as your car, although it uses a different filter rating system than cars. MERV, or Minimum efficiency report valuemeasures how well a home HVAC filter captures particles by size, with a range of 1 to 16 (the higher the number, the smaller the particles it filters). The EPA recommends a rating of 13 or higher to filter smoke from indoor wildfires.
Some aftermarket auto brands advertise high-end cabin filters as “MERV-13 equivalent” for comparison, using multi-layer electrostatic designs to trap fine particles.
Switch to recirculation mode
Vary the cycle on longer trips
Here in Detroit, I like to cruise down main roads like Telegraph and Woodward with the windows down and the sunroof open, but when there are air quality alerts in the forecast, I just turn on the air conditioning.
He HVAC system in your car It draws air from two sources, either outside the vehicle or from inside the cabin. In most cars, the recirculation button is indicated by a small curved arrow or loop with the silhouette of a vehicle. Pressing it prevents the system from sucking in outside air and instead recycles what is already inside.
Recirculation mode does not heat or cool the air on its own; it just changes where that air comes from. However, combined with air conditioning, I find that it often cools the interior as quickly as drawing in outside air, even on a hot day.
Some newer vehicles are equipped with air quality sensors that detect pollution and switch to recirculation mode on their own.
One last tip while driving
Air quality alerts generally decrease once a weather system moves through and clears the smoke, although the timeline varies from event to event. Until then, the tips above can help keep the air inside your car a little cleaner and fresher than the air outside.
As a final tip, keep in mind that recirculation mode traps exhaled carbon dioxide inside the cabin. On longer trips, that could make you feel sleepy. If you have a long road trip on your agendaTry periodically alternating between normal and recirculation mode.
