Smoke season crashes Airbnb hosts' peak revenue because guests cancel without penalty

Short-term rental hosts in mountain and wildfire-adjacent towns like Lake Tahoe, Bend, and Whitefish depend on July-September bookings for 50-70% of annual revenue. When smoke rolls in and AQI exceeds 150, guests cancel using Airbnb's extenuating circumstances policy, and hosts lose bookings with zero compensation and zero ability to rebook on short notice. A host carrying a $3,000/month mortgage on a vacation rental can lose $8,000-15,000 in cancellations during a single two-week smoke event. Unlike hurricane or earthquake risk, wildfire smoke is not insurable as a named peril under standard homeowner or landlord policies, so hosts cannot hedge this risk. This persists because Airbnb's extenuating circumstances policy was designed for discrete events (hurricanes, earthquakes) and has never been updated to handle the new reality of recurring, multi-week, region-wide smoke that does not destroy property but destroys the guest experience.