Berks County air quality hits Code Purple: what to do

The air in Berks County is dangerous to breathe today. The state has placed the county under a Code Purple air quality alert for Friday, July 17, the “very unhealthy” level, as wildfire smoke settles over Pennsylvania. The National Weather Service office in Mount Holly issued a matching alert that names Berks County and runs through midnight tonight. Everyone should cut back on time outdoors, and people with heart or lung conditions, older adults, and children should stay inside.

Friday is the worst day of a smoky stretch. The Department of Environmental Protection put the whole state under a Code Red, the “unhealthy” level, on Thursday, and raised it to Code Purple for Friday. The smoke is drifting in from wildfires in Canada and Minnesota. The Weather Service traces the thickest of it to fires in western Ontario and called it the region’s smokiest air since June 2023, with visibility Friday morning down to one to three miles in spots.

What Code Purple means

Pennsylvania and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rate air quality on a color-coded scale called the Air Quality Index. Each color marks a range from 0 to 500. The higher the number, the worse the air.

1. Green (0-50): good.
2. Yellow (51-100): moderate.
3. Orange (101-150): unhealthy for sensitive groups.
4. Red (151-200): unhealthy for everyone.
5. Purple (201-300): very unhealthy.
6. Maroon (301 and up): hazardous.

Code Purple is the second-worst category. DEP notes that conditions in any one spot can run higher (Code Maroon) or lower (Code Red or Orange) than the statewide call, so a neighborhood can be worse than the forecast. The pollutant driving the alert is PM2.5, fine particles of soot smaller than a speck of dust. They lodge deep in the lungs and pass into the bloodstream, which is why smoke is harder on the body than ordinary summer haze.

You can see the current number for your area, updated through the day, on the EPA’s AirNow.gov by entering your ZIP code, or on its Fire and Smoke Map. Reading-area monitors read in the unhealthy range Friday morning and were forecast to climb into very unhealthy through the afternoon.

Who is most at risk

Wildfire smoke is hardest on:

1. People with asthma, COPD, or other lung disease.
2. People with heart disease.
3. Older adults and young children.
4. Pregnant people.

If that includes you or someone in your home, DEP’s guidance is to avoid all outdoor activity while the alert holds. A Berks County pulmonologist, Dr. Alec Platt of Respiratory Specialists in Spring Township, told WFMZ that people with lung disease may need to use their inhalers more often, and should seek medical care if they are struggling to breathe despite it. He said wildfire smoke is more dangerous than regular pollution because of how small the particles are.

How to protect yourself

1. Stay indoors as much as you can, and keep outdoor exercise short or skip it.
2. Close your windows. Run air conditioning on the recirculate setting if you have it, so you are not pulling smoke inside.
3. Avoid anything that adds to indoor smoke or dust: no candles, no frying, no vacuuming without a good filter.
4. If you have to be outside for a while, a well-fitted N95 mask helps, because it catches the fine particles a cloth or surgical mask lets through. Dr. Platt made the same point to WFMZ.
5. Watch for symptoms: coughing, a scratchy throat, chest tightness, headache, or a racing heart. If they get bad, call your doctor or seek care.

DEP also asks residents to avoid adding to the pollution while the air is bad: skip the gas-powered mower and leaf blower, drive less if you can, and do not burn anything outdoors. That last point overlaps with the drought warning Berks is already under, where dry conditions have prompted local burn bans. Open burning is a bad idea on both counts right now.

When it clears

The Weather Service expects the smoke to linger through Saturday and likely clear out Saturday night as a weather system moves through. DEP’s forecast eases to Code Orange, unhealthy for sensitive groups, on Saturday, and to moderate by Sunday. The alert in effect now expires at midnight tonight, and the state can extend it if the smoke holds on.

The alert is a state and federal call, not something county government controls. For who runs what in local government, see our guide to how Berks County government works. We will update this report if DEP raises the level to hazardous or the smoke clears ahead of forecast.