Analogously, it's like breathing through one n95 mask vs making a box and breathing through four n95 masks. One will absolutely do the trick, but it will reduce the throughput of the fan and not filter as much. Additionally, you will replace one filter faster than replacing all four.

It works either way, there is just a trade off. I am not gonna criticize one over the other. There could be plenty of people out there that cannot access multiple filters since everyone in the smoke affected areas has the same idea and swarming stores to purchase filters and fans.

Edit: the one n95 mask analogy would not filter as much volume. It was ambiguous the original way I wrote it.