Florida’s air quality hasn’t improved.
Last year, the American Lung Association reported Florida’s air quality had slightly worsened. Its most recent State of the Air report shows Florida’s air has not changed. The most recent findings from 2022-2024 show that climate-change driven wild fires are a big reason why Florida’s air health choked last year.
The state doesn’t appear to be on track to improve this year, as wildfires continue this year at an unusually high rate. According to the Florida Forest Service, the state is tracking 130 active fires.
Most fires are in the Panhandle, but several were reported in Lake County. On Wednesday, firefighters snuffed out a 120-acre brush fire in Umatilla.
This year has been an unusual year for wildfires in the state. The FFS has responded to more than 1,700 wildfires so far this year. That's more than half of what they responded to in all of 2025 (~2,500 fires), said Glory Dolphin Hammes, the CEO for IQAir, a company that monitors air quality.
“What we're seeing are more forest fires in places that are not usually affected by wildfires. And this all, of course, has to do with the overall trend of the temperature increasing,” Hammes said.
In late April 2025, there were 96 active wildfires that burned 3,832 acres, per the Florida Forest Service.
Wildfires release fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a type of harmful air pollution. Breathing it in can be very detrimental to a person’s health, causing respiratory and cardiac issues like a heart attack, stroke, or hypertension, Hammes said.
“Sensitive groups, we have the youth, the elderly, people with autoimmune diseases, people with respiratory issues, people with heart issues, are more at risk for health issues,” Hammes said. “But the concentration levels that we're talking about, regular folks like you and me, healthy people can actually be affected.”
Depending on surface area winds, pollutants can hang in an area where a fire previously was for an extended period of time. That means more health risks for residents.
Hammes recommends replacing their HVAC air filters, wearing an N95 face mask, and keeping the windows closed.
Central Florida’s report card
Overall, Florida’s air is still faring very well. Part of the reason is its unique geography.
“A geographical advantage of Central Florida because of the two oceans, it actually helps the wind,” Hammes said.
The biggest beneficiary of those oceanic winds is Central Florida. According to IQAir’s active air monitoring, four Central Florida cities are in the top 10 best air quality cities in the state: Orlando, Oviedo, Cocoa, and New Smyrna.
In both 2023 and 2024, high temperatures and other weather conditions were ideal for ozone formation, especially in the South, while regional sources of precursor emissions have also become stronger and more widespread.
While Florida didn’t make progress as a whole in the State of the Air report, the Greater Orlando area slightly improved. Residents were exposed to less unhealthy ozone pollution, man-made chemical pollution like smog, or vehicle exhaust. The improvement bumped it up to the 143rd most polluted in the nation for ozone pollution, out of 226. Last year, it ranked 165th.
As for Particle Pollution, like PM 2.5, the Orlando-Lakeland-Deltona metro area ranked nationally 154th worst out of 224. Last year, it was 177th.
Where were the worst areas?
The State of the Air report showed that 44% of Americans – 152.3 million people – are living in a place with a failing grade containing unhealthy ozone or particle pollution.
Increases in vehicle and industrial exhaust, as well as spikes in particle pollution, were due to more extreme heat, drought, and wildfires, the report showed.
The most ozone-polluted area was Los Angeles-Long Beach, California. It was one of six California city areas to make the top 24 list – no Florida city was rated in that list.
The city with the worst impact from particle pollution on a daily average was Farbanks-College, Arkansas. Florida also did not make the top 24 list.
However, specifically measuring for PM 2.5 over a year, Florida didn’t do as well. When accounting for where people live, Florida’s yearly average level of fine particle pollution fell between 7.1 and 8.0, or about middle of the pack in the country.
Reducing the pollutants is no easy task, Hammes said. She believes the first step is delivering more education on the effects of a warming world.
“The key is acknowledging climate change in general. Because the overall trend is there, and unfortunately, the effects are that wildfires are in places that normally are not affected by wildfires, there is frequency in hurricanes, frequency in weather events that should be rare, but are now more commonplace,” she said.
