NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — Social media users are sharing a DIY way to protect yourself from wildfire smoke while indoors: a box fan, four air filters and a whole lot of duct tape.

As searches for “air purifiers” spike on Google, people are posting on TikTok and Facebook about how to build the DIY air purifier. The technique, known as the Corsi-Rosenthal method, has gained attention in recent years amid the pandemic and raging western U.S. wildfires.

Seattle resident Angel Robertson, 34, posted a video on a New Yorker’s TikTok demonstrating how to put it together. In her video, which has amassed more than 600,000 views, Robertson duct tapes four 20-by-20 air filters into a box shape and attaches the fan on top. The whole apparatus costs under $100.

Public health experts say Corsi-Rosenthal purifiers are highly effective at removing particles from the air. 

At the University of Connecticut Thursday, Misti Levy Zamora, an assistant professor in public health sciences, and her colleagues were handing out Corsi-Rosenthal purifiers for free to anyone stopping by. Zamora said she has done several tests at the university, public schools and her own home on the purifier.

Co-inventor Richard Corsi, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California at Davis, said in 2020, he was sketching one night and put the design up on Twitter. Jim Rosenthal, CEO of Tex-Air Filters, took the design and built it.

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