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Los Angeles is famous for celebrities, sunshine and smog... lots, and lots of smog.

But, L.A. doesn't hold a candle to Courtenay. The tiny Vancouver Island community has the second-worst air quality among cities in Canada and the United States.

A report on air quality was published by the British newspaper The Guardian, after gathering data from cities around the world from the World Health Organization.

The study ranked Courtenay No. 2 in North America, behind only the tiny California communities of Visalia and Porterville, situated between L.A. and San Francisco in a valley known as 'America's Salad Bowl.'

Courtenay's poor air quality, according to a CTV Vancouver Island story, is easy to pinpoint.

“According to the experts, it is wood smoke,” Jennell Ellis of Breathe Clean Air told CTV.

“The open burning of big slash piles and land clearing, the backyard burning and then a lot of it is smoke from wood stoves.”

Ellis said there have been four air quality advisories in the region this winter alone, lasting well over two combined weeks.

"We had a high health risk warning many, many nights"

Regina was the only other Canadian city listed in the top 10.

While Courtenay has the worst air quality in Canada, according to the report, Ellis is skeptical.

“Their numbers aren’t quite accurate and we might not be that bad, but we definitely have a problem here,” she said.

The report shows Canada and the United States are second only to New Zealand and Australia for air quality in the world.

The seven worst cities in the world for air quality are in India and the Middle East.

                                                                                                                 – files from CTV Vancouver Island