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In the News

Every headline has a number buried in it. We pull that number out, show you where it came from, and build the calculator that puts you in the story — because “record high” means nothing until you know what it means for your air, your rent, or your paycheck.

July 16, 2026
1.8cigarette-mass units a day
at AQI 155
Canadian wildfire smoke · July 2026Smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires pushed air quality past AQI 150 across the Midwest and Northeast.Wildfire smoke contains fine particulate matter. At AQI 155, this example produces a rough PM2.5-mass comparison of 1.8 cigarette-sized units per day. It is not a health-risk equivalence or a chemical comparison.Sources: EPA AQI breakpoints · Berkeley Earth methodology · CIFFC, mid-July 2026Explore the PM2.5 comparison →
How we pick these. A story earns a calculator when the number at its center is one you can actually be measured against — an exposure, a rate, a threshold — and when a public, citable source publishes it. We link the source on every figure, and we leave the tools up after the news cycle moves on, because the arithmetic does not expire. Spotted an error? Tell us — corrections get posted. See also all benchmarks and how we calculate.