Smoke risk in Bend piles up at the end of July. Since 2017, a 4-day stay between July 21 and 31 caught at least one day of air unhealthy for sensitive groups —% of the time. A stay in July 1 to 10 caught one —% of the time.
Bend-Redmond metro daily Air Quality Index, EPA AirData, 2000 to 2025. July 2026 isn't in EPA's archive yet.
Share of years in which a 4-day stay hit at least one day unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse, averaged over every start date in that stretch. Hover for the hazy-day (moderate or worse) share.
Share of days unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse, June to September, comparing two 13-year eras. Hover for hazy-day shares.
Each square is one July day, colored by that day's Air Quality Index. The outlined band is July 21 to 31. Blank squares had no reading.
July days at moderate or worse (light bars) and unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse (dark bars), July 4 and 5 left out for fireworks.
The numbers are EPA's daily Air Quality Index for the Bend-Redmond metro area: the worst reading across local monitors and pollutants each day. In July that is almost always fine particles, which is wildfire smoke. "Unhealthy for sensitive groups" is the level where smoke is visible, smells, and outdoor plans start to get cancelled; "moderate" is noticeable haze.
A "4-day stay" checks every 4-day window that fits inside each stretch of July, asks in what share of years it had at least one bad day, and averages those shares. Each era has 9 to 13 years, so a single bad summer moves these figures a lot; read them as rough odds, not forecasts. Before 2000 the Bend monitor sampled only one day in six, too sparse to include.
July 2026 isn't in EPA's archive yet. News coverage from that month describes several large fires near Sisters and along the Deschutes River in the last week of July, with air quality alerts for Deschutes County carrying into early August, which matches the late-July pattern here.
Data: EPA AirData, daily AQI by CBSA (Bend-Redmond, OR), 2000–2025. Exported October 2026.