# Air Quality Alert: Cass; St. Joseph; Branch; Hillsdale; Northern Berrien; Southern Berrien — retained record

> Retained us-gov-api record from us-gov-api:noaa-weather.

Canonical: https://highsignal.app/data/records/b8e07f758b4256f0

[← sources](https://highsignal.app/data)


source: [us-gov-api](https://highsignal.app/data/us-gov-api) (us-gov-api:noaa-weather)  published 2026-07-17 09:45 ingested 2026-07-18 15:08

[original source ↗](http://www.weather.gov/)

## extract

Air Quality Alert — Cass; St. Joseph; Branch; Hillsdale; Northern Berrien; Southern Berrien
Severity: Unknown. Certainty: Unknown.
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy
(EGLE) has issued an Air Quality Alert for Friday July 17 and
Saturday July 18, for elevated levels of fine particulate due to
wildfire smoke. Concentrations on Friday will range from Very
Unhealthy in southern areas to Hazardous in the north. On Saturday
concentrations will range from Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (USG)
in the south to Very Unhealthy in northern portions of the state.

This is a Statewide Air Quality Alert.

Plumes of smoke from Canadian wildfires continue to drift across the
region. Elevated fine particulate due to the smoke will continue
through Saturday. The threat of increased ozone may come into play
Saturday as well.

It is recommended that, when possible, you avoid strenuous outdoor
activities, especially those with heart disease and respiratory
diseases like asthma. Monitor for symptoms such as wheezing,
coughing, chest tightness, dizziness, or burning in nose, throat, and
eyes.

Everyone should seek cleaner air indoors and keep activity low.
While indoors, take action to improve the indoor air quality such as:

- Closing windows and minimize opening of doors.
- If HVAC systems are not equipped with MERV-13 filters or higher,use
portable air cleaners.
- Avoid activities that make indoor air quality worse:
burningcandles, using vacuums without a HEPA filter, using gas
stoves more than necessary, smoking, spraying aerosol products.

If you must be outdoors for short periods of time:
- Wear an N95 or P100 respirator marked with "NIOSH." The
respiratorshould fit tightly, collapse as you breathe in and not
let air in from the sides.
- Do not use masks for children under age of 2.

For up-to-date air quality data for Michigan visit the MiAir site:
Michigan.gov/MiAir

For up-to-date air quality data nationally visit EPA's Air Now site:
AirNow.gov

For further health information, please see MDHHS's Wildfire Smoke
and You Health site:
https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/safety-injury-prev/environmental-
health/your-health-and-wildfire-smoke

## retained text

The historical document was shared with another weather alert and cannot be attributed to this record. The original extract is preserved above; the exact alert link was not retained.