During the majority of the year, particularly winter months, Canberra experiences relatively healthy air quality. During 2019, the months of January to October ranged between monthly average PM2.5 levels of 6.8 μg/m3 to 11.1 μg/m3, with a mean of 8.9 μg/m3. While this slightly exceeds Australia’s national legal annual target of 8 μg/m3, this is within the World Health Organisation’s recommended annual limit of 10 μg/m3. Only during the last two months of 2019 did particulate pollution start increasing significantly, with 12.6 μg/m3 in November 2019, and a much higher 74.1 μg/m3 in December 2019.3
While the winter months therefore provide some relief from the bushfire-related air pollution, it is likely that Canberra may be subject to seasonal haze from wildfire smoke in the summer months again in future. However, due to the amount of bushfire “fuel” that was burned up during 2019-2020’s black summer, experts predict that Australian bushfires may not reach such destructive levels for the subsequent 3 to 5 years as the land recovers.6