air quality

Protecting Your Home, Family, & Air Quality Before, During, and After Wildfires

Wildfire Preparedness Summary & Checklist

Posted By AirDoctor TeamDecember 11, 2025

Protecting Your Home, Family, & Air Quality Before, During, and After Wildfires

The following tips are provided for informational purposes only and you should always consider any advice with respect to your specific situation and needs. Always pay attention to the advice and warnings from local and governmental authorities with respect to wildfire planning and danger.

Wildfires have become a fact of life for millions of Americans. They destroy homes, disrupt communities, and fill the air with toxic pollutants that can impact your health long after the smoke has cleared.

And the threat is only growing. Today, roughly one-third of the U.S. homes are located in counties with high wildfire risk, according to the U.S. Forest Service. That means tens of millions of families are now living with the possibility of fire-related damage or exposure to dangerous smoke every year.

In the 1980s, for example, the U.S. averaged just two major wildfires a year. Between 2014 and 2023, that number jumped to nine annually,with incidents of fires causing increasing fatalities.¹ As wildfires continue to increase in frequency and intensity, their effects are reaching farther than ever before and sometimes impacting communities hundreds of miles from the flames.

Since wildfires are here to stay, the best defense is preparation. Protecting your home and family means planning ahead², not just during fire season, but all year long.

In this blog, you’ll learn practical steps to prepare before the first embers spark, how to clean up safely afterward, and smart year-round habits to help safeguard your home and health.

Preparing for Wildfire Season

With wildfires now an unwelcome, yet regular part of life, it’s critical to prepare before they strike. While you can’t control when or where wildfires ignite, you can control how well you prepare your home for when they do.

Creating a Defensible Space

Whether wildfires are actively burning, or it’s a quiet stretch between seasons, one of the best ways to protect your home is creating a defensible space3, according to The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

This simply means clearing an area about 30-100 feet around your home. That open space can act as a barrier against flames, help firefighters do their job, and give you precious extra time to get your family to safety.

Start by removing anything in this area that can easily ignite, such as:

Dry leaves and pine needles
Overhanging tree branches
Paper, trash, or cardboard
Old or damaged wooden storage units
Firewood piles
Flammable plants or shrubs

The Importance of Vegetation

That last point may come as a surprise. Many people don’t realize the plants, shrubs, and trees near their home can either slow down a wildfire, or feed it.

Vegetation with oils, waxes, or resins can combust quickly and even explode, spreading burning embers through the air.

Some of the most flammable offenders include⁴:

Combustible Trees: eucalyptus, pine, cedar
Combustible Plants: rosemary, sagebrush, pampas grass

In contrast, certain plants naturally resist flames. While no vegetation is completely fireproof, these species are far less likely to fuel a blaze⁴:

Fire-Resistant Trees: western larch, ponderosa pine, birch
Fire-Resistant Plants: annuals, tall bearded iris, honeysuckle, lavende

There are thousands of plant varieties, so it’s best to have a conversation with your gardener or landscaper about which are the safest for your region or property.

There are thousands of plant varieties, so it’s best to talk with your gardener or landscaper, and check with your local fire department or forestry agency about which plants are safest for your region and property.

Using Fire-Resistant Materials

If you’re building or renovating, the materials you choose can mean the difference between a house that survives and one that doesn’t. For example, roofs made of metal, tile, or asphalt shingles are far less likely to ignite than wood shingles — which, while beautiful, are highly flammable in wildfire zones⁵.

Similarly, siding matters: fiber cement or stucco perform better than vinyl when exposed to heat⁶.

If replacing materials isn’t an option, consider fire-resistant coatings or paints that expand and insulate surfaces under extreme heat, and even small upgrades, like metal trim around vents or mesh screening on eaves that block flying embers, can make a big difference⁷.

Preparing Your Family for an Emergency

Even with the best laid plans, there may come a time when staying put simply isn’t safe. Having a clear evacuation plan, and knowing exactly what to take, can make all the difference when every minute counts.

Knowing Where to Go

Having a destination planned ahead of time can turn chaos into calm. Reach out to friends or family now, before an emergency strikes, to confirm where you’ll stay if you need to evacuate.

In the confusion and emotion of a crisis, trying to figure out an evacuation plan on the fly can waste precious time and add unnecessary stress. Knowing exactly where you’ll go lets you focus on getting there safely.

The Importance of Having Lists

One of the simplest, yet most powerful, ways to prepare for an emergency evacuation is by creating and organizing a packing list in advance. These lists ensure nothing vital is left behind in the rush to leave.

Here are some example packing lists to help spark ideas for your own emergency kit. These lists are general suggestions and can be adapted to meet your family’s unique needs:

Essential Items:
- Passports, IDs, and other government-issued identification
- Credit cards, cash, and wallets
- Insurance papers, wills, and other important documents
- First-aid kit and prescription medication for each family member
- Laptops, phones, charging cables, hard drives, and other technology
- Valuable such as jewelry, collectibles, or stock certificates
- Irreplaceable keepsakes like photos, heirlooms, or memorabilia not backed up digitally
Personal Comfort Items:
- Blankets, bedding, and towels
- Toiletries and change of clothing
- Comfort items for children: your son’s goldfish or your daughter’s favorite doll, anything that will help calm them during the crisis
- Nonperishable snacks and comfort foods
- A book, a deck of cards, or board game to help pass the time
- A battery-powered radio

Every family’s needs are different, but the key is to think ahead and have these items packed, labeled, and easy-to-grab. Preparation isn’t just about safety, it’s about peace of mind when the unexpected happens.

Wildfire Preparedness Summary & Checklist

Preparing for wildfires can feel overwhelming, but it really comes down to one thing: thinking ahead. By imagining how a wildfire might affect your home and taking small, proactive steps now, you can avoid having to make critical decisions under pressure later.

Wildfires can move quickly, and it’s important to be prepared for your safety and your home. For comprehensive guidance on what to do before, during, and after a wildfire, the American Red Cross has an excellent Wildfire Safety Checklist that covers evacuation planning, home safety, and recovery:

Red Cross Wildfire Safety Checklist (PDF)

Keep Your Indoor Air Safe and Healthy

As air quality experts, we want to highlight steps you can take to protect your indoor environment during and after wildfire smoke:

Run your HEPA air filtration system continuously to trap smoke and particulate matter.
Seal gaps under doors with damp towels or weather stripping to limit smoke infiltration.
Avoid stirring up particles indoors with high-heat cooking or non-HEPA vacuuming.
After smoke exposure, clean hard surfaces with soap and water, use a HEPA vacuum for carpets and upholstery, and replace HVAC and air purifier filters promptly.
Continue running your HEPA filtration system 24/7 for several weeks if your home was exposed to smoke.

The Best Defense Against Toxic Wildfire Smoke

When wildfires burn, they release a toxic mixture of gases and microscopic particles, including ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and PM2.5. These microscopic particles have been linked to respiratory illness⁸, heart disease⁹, and even neurological issues¹⁰.

This is why experts warn that no amount of wildfire smoke is harmless.

"There's no such thing as safe wildfire smoke; any of it is too much for us. It's important that we get prepared and we're taking this seriously," says Helen Christoni, an air quality expert and senior vice president of AirDoctor by Ideal Living, told to ABC News. "Toxic substances and particulate matter from wildfires are sticky. They can adhere to surfaces for up to several years, even hundreds of miles from where that fire started."

A HEPA filter works by pulling in contaminated air, trapping pollutants in a dense maze of fibers, then releasing clean, breathable air back into the home. But here’s the truth: not all HEPA systems are created equal.

One revolutionary system truly stands above the rest: AirDoctor.

Before we dive into how HEPA systems work, we want to share something that hits close to home. In January, Los Angeles, the city we call home, experienced the deadliest fire in its history. The wildfires claimed 29 lives, forced over 200,000 people to evacuate, and destroyed over 18,000 homes and structures.

During this devastating crisis, we also witnessed the incredible resilience of our community. As an LA-based company specializing in air quality, we knew we had to act quickly. The AirDoctor team immediately set up in our office parking lot, offering air purifiers at extremely discounted rates for affected residents, and hosted pop-up donation events in hard-hit areas like Altadena.

Here’s a glimpse of what that looked like:

How AirDoctor Stands Out

With a patented, 3-stage filtration process, AirDoctor air purifiers feature the breakthrough UltraHEPA® filter, independently verified to remove 99.99% of airborne impurities at 0.003microns, including particles 100 times smaller than the HEPA standard. That level of precision can mean the difference between protecting your family’s health and exposing it to unseen risks.

And unlike most air purifiers, AirDoctor doesn’t stop at particles. It also neutralizes wildfire gases like ground-level ozone, a layer of defense most HEPA systems just can’t match. In fact, Wired listed AirDoctor 5500i as the ‘Best Air Purifier for PM2.5 and Gases’.

During wildfire season, clean indoor air becomes more than a comfort, it becomes a necessity. An AirDoctor customer, Patricia from Denver, shared, “I sent a unit to my nephew last year during the wildfires and he stated that it worked great. He has asthma and it kept the air clean for him. I then bought a unit for myself and I love that it will automatically adjust the air when there is smoke in the air.”

In fact, in a recent survey, over 97% of customers said they feel more confident knowing Airdoctor filters smoke from their indoor air, including wildfire smoke. For families facing unpredictable smoke events, AirDoctor offers peace of mind through smart sensors and powerful filtration.

Wildfires may be unpredictable, but your indoor air doesn’t have to be. Don’t wait for the next alert. Start breathing cleaner, fresher, pure air TODAY with AirDoctor!

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