Lahore’s air turned hazardous on Monday morning as the city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) crossed 530, while nearby Gujranwala recorded even dirtier air.
At 8 am, air monitoring platform IQAir recorded an AQI of 535 in Lahore. The level of PM2.5, the tiny particles that can travel deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, stood at 343 micrograms per cubic metre. Readings had already slipped into the hazardous range in the early morning hours.
Five Punjab Cities Among the Worst
Five Punjab cities were among Pakistan’s six most polluted on IQAir’s live ranking on Monday morning. Gujranwala topped the list with an AQI of 606, followed by Lahore at 509, Faisalabad and Multan at 310 each, and Sialkot at 260. Peshawar was sixth at 216.
The numbers kept changing through the morning. In later hourly updates, Gujranwala climbed to 675 and Lahore to 535.
Crop Fires Surge Around Lahore
The spike comes as farm fires rise sharply across the province. According to an analysis by monitoring website HamariHawa, NASA satellites detected 13,241 fire spots in Pakistani Punjab between October 1 and 29, which is 4.2 times the 3,158 spotted in Indian Punjab.
About 92 percent of these fires were on farmland and were likely linked to burning leftover crops. Half of the month’s total, 6,655 fire spots, came in the last seven days of October, with a peak of 1,327 on October 29. Okara had the most fires at 2,144, followed by Gujranwala (1,011) and Nankana Sahib (1,003).
October Gains Fade
Meanwhile, a new analysis by the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative (PAQI) has questioned the extent of improvement in Lahore’s air quality during October, despite government claims that the city experienced its cleanest October in five years.
The Punjab government had called October 2026 Lahore’s cleanest October in five years. Data shared by Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb put the city’s average AQI at 180.5, down from 204.6 last year. However, a Pakistan Air Quality Initiative analysis found that weather did most of the work behind October’s improvement.
According to PAQI, average PM2.5 concentrations in October 2026 fell by 27 percent compared with the same month last year across 26 monitoring sites. However, after accounting for weather conditions, the improvement was estimated at just 4 percent.
The analysis attributed a substantial part of the decline to weather conditions, particularly a deeper nighttime atmospheric mixing layer, which allowed pollutants more room to disperse.
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