Help Keep Wildfire Smoke Out Your Car With This Button

There are a lot of dangers out there when you hit the road in the year of our lord, 2023. You might get swallowed up by a sinkhole, smashed by a passing passenger train, or get stuck on a road that’s melting under our rising temperatures. Right now, in America, a big risk many drivers face is poor air quality as a result of Canada’s wildfires. As it turns out, your car is equipped with a little button that can help with that.

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The button is the air recirculation control, which is fitted to almost every car on the road today. It looks like a little drawing of a car with a twisted arrow inside and it prevents your climate controls from drawing in air from the outside. Instead, the temperature controls keep recirculating the air that’s already inside the cabin to keep you cool, calm, and, hopefully, comfortable.

Usually, this helps stop things like pollen or unfortunate smells from entering your cabin from the outside world. But now, with roads choked with wildfire smoke, it’s got one more use that might not have occurred to you.

This little button right here. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado (Getty Images)

As local news station Fox8 reports that the button can also help keep your car cooler in summer heat, and save on fuel, too. According to the site:

This can also help boost your air conditioning, which can make the cabin of your car cooler, quicker. For those living within the heat dome — currently impacting Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, the Mississippi Valley, and portions of Florida — this may be especially beneficial.

[…]

As [Tabitha Ruhl, manager of Joplin Transmission and Auto Center] explained, when your car has to pull in and cool (usually hot) air from the outside, your vehicle has to work harder, which can mean using more gas. But if you recirculate the already chilled air in your car’s cabin, your vehicle should be more fuel efficient.

Because the air recirculation button goes hand-in-hand with a vehicle’s air conditioning system, you’ll likely want to use it when it’s the temperature outside is greater than 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s timely info with record temperatures set to continue into the summer, and wildfire season only just beginning in many parts of North America. Stay safe out there.