July 2021

As we enter wildfire season, there are precautions that should be taken to help keep your air clean. Not only do wildfires destroy everything in their path, but their destruction can reach for miles and miles away. Air quality can be affected from the fires’ destruction. Thus, affecting your indoor air quality. Here, we discuss 3 ways to help improve your indoor air quality during wildfires.

Keep Contaminated Air From Coming In And Affecting Indoor Air Quality

Obviously, if you’re near any fires, you should evacuate or listen to what local enforcement recommends. But, if you’re a ways away from the fire, you should try to keep contaminated air from coming into your home. Although this may be an obvious first step, you should try to keep your windows and doors closed. Make sure the seals around your windows and doors are doing their job. We know fresh air is important, but it’s also important not to bring in contaminated air.

Replace Filters To Improve Indoor Air Quality During Wildfires

Replacing your filters is another important factor to help improve your indoor air quality. Replace your filters regularly and upgrade them with a higher MERV rating if you need to. However, using a filter with finer fibers may cause your system to use more energy. So, make sure you switch back to the filter rating recommended by your manufacturer after the wildfire season is over. Also, using an air purifier or air scrubber with an activated charcoal filter can help reduce odors and smells cause by wildfire smoke and help your home feel cleaner.

Don’t Create More Particles During Wildfires

Cooking, smoking, vacuuming, lighting candles, cleaning with chemicals, etc. These all create more particles that may contaminate your indoor air quality. This may be tough to not do, especially because cooking and cleaning is something most of us do daily. However, using gas, propane, and wood burning stoves can cause fine particles to contaminate your indoor air. Although, it may be hard to stop cooking, keeping frying or broiling to a minimum may help lower the contamination of your air.

Conclusion

Wildfires are terrible. They negatively affect the quality of our life. And even if we aren’t directly in the path of a fire, the contaminated air can affect areas around it for miles and miles. The devastation that wildfires cause are tragic and a major health concern. Improving indoor air quality during wildfires is important to our health. If you need help deciding what filters you may need or if you want to upgrade your filters, please, don’t hesitate to contact us.