Here’s how Whatcom, Skagit counties fared in annual clean-air report
Smoke from wildfires both locally and across the region is still keeping Bellingham off the list of U.S. cities with the overall cleanest air — an honor it held 20 years ago.
Air quality in Whatcom County got a “D” for 24-hour particle pollution because of wildfire smoke, according to the American Lung Association’s 2025 “State of the Air” report. Other counties across Washington received similar marks, according to the report, which was released Wednesday.
Mark Buford, executive director of the Northwest Clean Air Agency, said in a statement that wildfire smoke has affected all of Washington in recent years. Even so, Whatcom and Skagit counties have good air quality in general.
“Local air quality would be in the ‘A’ range if wildfire smoke is factored out of our data,” Buford said in a statement. “It’s very important to keep that in mind and to realize low 24-hour grades link directly to those harmful wildfire smoke events.”
Whatcom and Skagit counties earned “A” grades overall for ground-level ozone pollution in this year’s report, ranking them among the cleanest U.S. counties for ozone.
Bellingham was among the nation’s cleanest cities for ozone in the American Lung Association’s 26th annual report, which includes data from 2021-2023. It does not include information from the summer of 2024, which saw little wildfire smoke.
In 2005, Bellingham topped the list as one of the cleanest cities in the nation by placing in all three categories measured in the annual report.
This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
