Live air quality for Pai — the fine-particle haze that fills the valley in burning season, updated through the day.
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Live air quality for central Pai, updated automatically. Pai sits in a river valley that traps smoke, so the reading here can change sharply from one day to the next during burning season.
Good The air is about as clean as it gets — no reason to change any plans.
| Day | Air quality |
|---|---|
| Sat 11 Jul | Fair |
| Sun 12 Jul | Fair |
| Mon 13 Jul | Fair |
| Tue 14 Jul | Fair |
Pai sits in a basin on the Pai River at about 550 metres. The bowl shape traps smoke with little wind to clear it. From roughly February to April, crop and forest burning across northern Thailand fills the valley with fine-particle haze (PM2.5). During the 2026 season, readings in Pai district reached 182.7 micrograms per cubic metre, and earlier reporting recorded 232.5 — far above the Thai 24-hour standard of 37.5 and the World Health Organization guideline of 15. One local vendor described it simply: 'It feels like you're trapped in the smoke constantly.' Tourist arrivals fell by nearly 90% over two months that season.
The index above is the European Air Quality Index, based on pollutants including PM2.5. Lower is cleaner. Up to about 20 is good and 20 to 40 is fair; 40 to 60 is moderate; 60 to 80 is poor; 80 to 100 is very poor; above 100 is extremely poor. For comparison, the Thai PM2.5 standard treats 37.5 micrograms per cubic metre as the daily limit, and burning-season peaks in Pai have run several times higher. When the band reads poor or worse, the haze is usually visible across the valley.
When the reading is high, spend less time outdoors and keep windows and doors closed, especially in the afternoon and evening when haze often settles in the valley. A well-fitted N95 or KN95 mask filters fine particles; a cloth or surgical mask does much less. Children, older people, pregnant people, and anyone with asthma, heart, or lung conditions feel it first. If breathing is hard, seek care; serious cases in Pai are referred to Chiang Mai.
Updated . These are modelled estimates for the area around central Pai, not readings from a street monitor — air right beside a busy road can be worse than the area-wide picture. Official forecast: iqair.com. Air quality data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), based on Copernicus CAMS.