Press & media

The short version

A free, public tool that shows real-time air quality for the roughly 2,600 named public lands in the United States, folds in wildfire smoke, and tells you whether the air where you are headed is clean enough to go.

It is one of several free public tools built by More Than Just Parks, an independent, reader-funded public lands advocacy organization founded by Jim and Will Pattiz.

Fact sheet

• What it coversAir quality centered on named public lands rather than zip codes or individual sensors, roughly 2,600 units across 50 states.
• What is newIt answers air quality as a trip decision for a specific park, with a nearest-monitor estimate where no monitor sits inside the unit, clearly labeled as an estimate.
• Update cadenceAir quality refreshes through the day; smoke and fire data on their own schedules.
• CostFree, no account required.

Data sources

EPA AirNow and EPA-corrected PurpleAir monitors, NOAA HMS smoke analysis, NASA FIRMS, NIFC/WFIGS fire data, and USGS PAD-US 4.0 boundaries. Full detail and methodology are on the methodology page.

Citing and using the tool

You are welcome to reference, screenshot, and link to the tool in reporting, with attribution to “More Than Just Parks” and a link to the page. Please do not present our verdicts or estimates as official government determinations; they are our reading of public data, and the underlying agencies are the authoritative source. We do not offer a public data API or bulk data export.

For interviews, a founder quote, high-resolution assets, custom data pulls for a story, or to verify a number before you publish, get in touch and we’ll turn it around quickly.

Press contact

ask@morethanjustparks.com
More Than Just Parks · morethanjustparks.com