Australia is in the middle of a bushfire crisis, with a state of emergency declared for seven days just after the new year in NSW, the worst hit state [1]. However, the secondary affects of the fires is also a large cause for concern, with the air quality dropping to the worst possible level this morning (14/01/2020) [2].

One of my favourite views of Melbourne CBD is from Ruckers Hill in Northcote. Today it's totally gone. pic.twitter.com/t5lyNE8QRw

— Yara Murray-Atfield (@YaraM_A) January 13, 2020

The one question on my mind, was how does it compare to cities commonly thought of as having poor air quality? Using canva, and data retrivied from AQICN, I was able to get real time statistics and plot the data.

References

• [1] The Guardian, “NSW state of emergency: what does it mean for the bushfires crisis?”, 2020.
• [2] ABC, “Melbourne air quality drops to ‘hazardous’ levels as bushfire smoke lingers over Victoria” ,2020