August 7, 2026
Air Quality Update | August 7, 2026 | 2 min read
Portland briefly topped the world's worst-air-quality rankings this week, and a seven-county alert has kept much of western Washington under a smoke advisory. Cleaner air is finally arriving, but the same weather pattern bringing relief is also raising the odds that fires spread faster in the meantime.
Portland climbed IQAir's global rankings from 10th-worst on August 3 to the single worst major city in the world at one point on the morning of August 5, with an average AQI of 160 among roughly 120 major cities the site tracks, worse than Delhi and Kuwait City that day.
In Washington, an air quality alert expanded to cover seven counties, with a heat advisory layered on top. Conditions were far worse near the state's active wildfires: communities around Lake Wenatchee, Chelan, Winthrop, and Twisp saw smoke thick enough to reach hazardous levels, unsafe for the entire population rather than just sensitive groups.
Smoke from more than 50 large, uncontained wildfires burning across the Pacific Northwest has been feeding into both regions. In Oregon, a wind shift carried smoke from fires in eastern Oregon and central Washington across the Cascades into the Willamette Valley, compounded by a heat pattern that traps smoke near the ground.
Oregon has now burned more than 2 million acres in a single year for the first time on record. In Washington, smoke drifting from Central and Eastern Washington fires settled over the South Sound, the Eastside, the Chehalis Valley and parts of Hood Canal.
Forecasters expect an onshore push of cooler, cleaner marine air to work into western Washington and Oregon through the end of the week, gradually scouring out the smoke. But that same increase in wind is also expected to elevate wildfire danger, since stronger and more sustained winds create more favorable conditions for existing fires to spread rapidly. It's a trade-off that forecasters are watching closely rather than a clean resolution to the smoke event.
Oregon's air quality advisory ran through Thursday evening, with noticeably cleaner air expected in the Willamette Valley by Friday as the marine push arrives. In Washington, the onshore flow was expected to strengthen through Thursday and Friday, with further progress into the weekend, though communities closest to active fires, including Chelan, Wenatchee, and Omak, are likely to keep seeing periods of smoky air even as the broader region clears.
Prep your home while smoke lingers
Closed doors and windows help, but smoke still works its way inside on days like these. A few steps to take now:
