How should our HOA run the pool, courts and clubhouse on wildfire smoke days?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised October 28, 2026

When an HOA board should close the pool, courts and playground for wildfire smoke, how to read the AQI, filter the clubhouse air and notify owners.

Part of the HOA board handbook: vendors, projects and upkeep.

The short answer

Write the rules before the smoke shows up. Adopt a one-page policy that ties each amenity to an Air Quality Index level from AirNow, names one person who can close and reopen, and says how owners will hear about it. When smoke arrives, that person checks the current fine particle AQI, applies the table, posts the notice and logs the reading. A workable line for most communities: at 101, the orange 'Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups' range, shorten or move inside anything organized for kids and seniors. At 151, the red 'Unhealthy' range, close the pool, courts and playground to organized use and cancel outdoor events with physical activity. Keep the clubhouse or fitness room open only if its air is actually being filtered. Those numbers are board choices modeled on federal health guidance, not legal limits, and your governing documents and state law control who can close what. This guide is education, not legal or medical advice.

Read the right number

Use AirNow.gov or the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map, and look at the reading for fine particles, PM2.5, from the monitor or sensor nearest the community. The AQI runs in six bands: Good 0 to 50, Moderate 51 to 100, Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups 101 to 150, Unhealthy 151 to 200, Very Unhealthy 201 to 300 and Hazardous 301 and up. The hourly 'current' number on AirNow is not a raw one-hour reading. EPA's smoke guide for public health officials explains that it comes from the NowCast, a weighted average of the previous 12 hours that leans on the most recent hours when air quality is changing fast. That means the number can lag a smoke plume that just rolled in, so the policy should let the decision-maker close early if visibility drops and the forecast is bad. Write down the reading, the source and the time each time you act. If a neighbor complains later that the pool closed for nothing, that log is your answer.

Build the closure table in advance

AirNow's Air Quality Guide for Particle Pollution sets out who should change what. Sensitive groups are people with heart or lung disease, older adults, children and teenagers, minority populations and outdoor workers. At 101 to 150, sensitive groups should make outdoor activities shorter and less intense and take more breaks. At 151 to 200, sensitive groups should avoid long or intense outdoor activities and everyone else should cut back. At 201 to 300, sensitive groups should avoid all outdoor physical activity. At 301 and above, everyone should. EPA's table of actions for health officials adds that as smoke reaches the unhealthy range, officials should consider canceling outdoor events such as concerts and competitive sports, and at higher levels cancel active ones outright. Turn that into a table the board adopts. One version: below 101, everything open as usual. At 101 to 150, open, but youth swim team practice, pickleball leagues and the playground camp get shortened or moved, and a sign at each gate gives the reading. At 151 to 200, pool, courts, playground and dog park closed to organized use, outdoor events canceled, clubhouse open as a filtered indoor space if it qualifies. At 201 and above, all outdoor amenities closed, outdoor staff and vendors stood down, and the clubhouse open only if indoor readings stay low. Reopen when the current AQI has stayed below 101 for a set period your board picks, such as three hours, so you are not opening and closing the gate all afternoon.

Make the clubhouse a cleaner air room

A clubhouse is only a refuge if the air inside is cleaner than the air outside. EPA's guide says buildings offered as cleaner air spaces need filtration for particles, either a MERV 13 or higher filter in the HVAC system or a properly sized portable air cleaner with HEPA filtration, plus limited door and window use. Its page for schools and commercial buildings says to confirm the system can handle a higher-efficiency filter first, to keep adequate airflow, and to cut down on entrances and door openings. Ask your HVAC contractor three questions in the spring: can the unit run a MERV 13 filter without losing airflow, how do we set it to recirculate or close the outdoor air damper during smoke, and what does it cost to keep a spare set of filters on the shelf. If the answer on MERV 13 is no, buy portable air cleaners. EPA's Guide to Air Cleaners in the Home suggests a clean air delivery rate of at least 65 cubic feet per minute per 100 square feet, so a 600 square foot fitness room needs about 390, more with a tall ceiling. Buy units that are certified as low or no ozone; EPA's smoke guide points to the California Air Resources Board's certified list. Never use an ozone generator in an occupied room. A low-cost PM2.5 sensor inside, read against the outdoor number, tells you whether the room is working. If you cannot get the indoor reading well below outdoors, close the room too.

Lifeguards, landscapers and volunteers

The people working outdoors breathe the smoke longest, and they are not members deciding for themselves. EPA's guide lists the usual options: postpone or shorten outdoor work, do only high priority tasks, move work to a cleaner time of day, reduce exertion, and give workers frequent breaks in filtered rooms or air conditioned vehicles. Put that into your contracts. Ask the pool management company and the landscaper for their written smoke plan, and agree in advance that closures for smoke are not a breach and how the hours get billed. California is the clearest example of a state rule: Cal/OSHA's 8 CCR 5141.1 applies to many outdoor workers once the PM2.5 AQI reaches 151, requires employers to offer NIOSH-approved respirators such as N95s for voluntary use from 151 to 500, and makes them mandatory above 500. Texas, Florida and Colorado boards should ask their vendors which rules apply to their crews. Volunteers are your problem directly. Cancel the common area cleanup day or the board's tree planting rather than hand out masks and hope.

Who decides and how owners hear about it

Start with the declaration and the rules. Most give the board power to regulate the common area, and Colorado says it in statute: C.R.S. 38-33.3-302(1)(f) lets the association regulate the use, maintenance, repair and replacement of common elements. The problem is speed. Smoke decisions happen on a Saturday morning, and you do not want to call a board meeting to close a pool. In Florida, 720.303(2)(c)1 requires board meeting notice posted 48 hours ahead or mailed 7 days ahead, except in an emergency, and Texas and Colorado have their own open meeting rules for associations. The clean fix is to adopt the table at a regular, properly noticed meeting and delegate the day-of call to a named officer or the pool manager. Sample motion: 'Move to adopt the wildfire smoke amenity policy as presented, and to authorize the president, or the community manager in the president's absence, to close and reopen amenities under the policy's AQI table, with each action and the AQI reading reported at the next board meeting.' Sample notice for the gate and the email list: 'Smoke from nearby wildfires has pushed the air quality index to [reading] (Unhealthy) as of [time], per AirNow. Under the board's smoke policy, the pool, courts and playground are closed until the index stays below 101 for three hours. The clubhouse is open with filtered air. Check airnow.gov for current conditions.'

Ash in the pool and reopening

Smoke days near an active fire can leave ash on the deck and in the water. Ventura County, California's guidelines for pools affected by fire, smoke and ash are a good checklist even outside California: skim the surface and empty the skimmer baskets, brush and vacuum, backwash and clean the filter, check filter pressure or flow, bring pH to 7.2 to 7.8 and free chlorine to at least 1.0 ppm for pools and 3.0 ppm for spas, and expect to repeat the cleaning as more ash falls over the following days and weeks. Do not drain the pool to get rid of ash, and do not hose the deck or backwash into a storm drain. Sweep the deck with light misting to keep ash from going airborne and bag it as trash. If the fence was damaged, put up a temporary barrier before anything else. Our guide on opening an HOA pool for the season has the full chemistry and safety checklist to run before members go back in.

A sample smoke day and the mistakes to avoid

Spring: adopt the policy, confirm the HVAC can run MERV 13 filters, buy spare filters and any portable air cleaners, and add smoke terms to the pool and landscape contracts. Smoke forecast the night before: the designated officer emails owners that closures are possible and where to check. 7 a.m.: check AirNow, log the reading, and decide. 8 a.m.: signs on the gates, email and text out, vendors told. Every three hours: recheck and log. Reopening: once the index has held below 101 for the set period, clean the ash, check the chemistry and reopen. Next board meeting: report every closure and reading in the minutes. The mistakes repeat. Boards wait for smoke to decide who decides, close based on how the sky looks instead of a number, open the clubhouse as a 'clean air room' with the door propped open and no filtration, buy an ionizer or ozone machine from an online ad, keep a lifeguard on a stand for six hours at 180 because the pool is technically open, and forget to tell owners when it reopens. For the fire side of the same season, our guide on setting up a wildfire defensible space program covers the common area work.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

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