Miniature air-pollution sensors the size of match boxes are being trialled on street lamps on Melbourne's Queens Street Bridge and if successful could see the state's network of air-monitoring stations expanded from 18 to thousands.

The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) hopes to eventually install air-monitoring equipment in every street in Victoria.

The $200 trial sensors measure the fine particles present in smoke, dust and car exhaust fumes, but in the future the air monitors could also measure a range of different pollutants including gases and pollen.

The data could be used by emergency services to produce warnings for people with health conditions such as asthma, who would be able to access the information via a mobile-phone app.

Poor air quality can pose serious and immediate health problems for people with asthma or lung disease, as evidenced by last month's thunderstorm asthma disaster which claimed the lives of eight people.

There is also evidence that links exposure to air pollution, and particularly the particles in diesel fumes, to long-term poor health.

"Generally the air quality in Melbourne and Victoria is good and it's unlikely to be causing significant impacts on people without respiratory disease.  Even though we don't know all the long-term health impacts of variations in air quality,  local and international studies indicate a link between traffic related air pollution and respiratory symptoms" Lung Health Research Centre director Professor Alastair Stewart said.

Professor Stewart said data provided by widespread air monitoring may also assist research into how to predict environmental effects on asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases in the future.

One of the EPA's air-quality sensors. Photo: Joe Armao, Fairfax Media.

The EPA is also investigating whether air quality sensors placed on street lamps or electricity poles could be used as outdoor smoke detectors, alerting fire authorities to bushfires.

The authority's manager of applied sciences, Anthony Boxshall, said fires produced small particles and other pollutants that could be detected by air sensors using existing technology.

"Just imagine there is a lightning strike that creates a fire two kilometres down a country road that has a light pole, and maybe no one notices it for an hour or so because it's not near a house," Dr Boxshall said.

"If you had air quality senors 50 metres away on a pole it would pick it up.

"The more information you have about where and how a fire started the better you can predict where a fire will go."

A similar air monitoring project in Tasmania is already bringing together information on pollution, weather and pollen, with around 29 sensors.

Dr Fay Johnston, an expert on the health effects of air pollution, said people had been able to use the data to work out if smoke or pollen had been aggravating their asthma.

The sensors had also detected poor air quality caused by wood fires.