AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Assessing Indoor Air Quality Impact of Wildfires with Chemical Signatures
ODESSA GOMEZ, Alina M. Handorean, Jane Turner, Mark T. Hernandez, University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract Number: 697 Working Group: Indoor Aerosols
Abstract Size segregated aerosols (PM$_(10) and PM$_(2.5)), collected during local and regional wildfires in the Rocky Mountain Front Range, were analyzed for their total organic carbon content (OC) and water soluble fractions (WSOC), elemental carbon content (EC), and their fluorescent properties. A large, high-occupancy university building, evacuated during the course of the sampling, served as a model to determine the performance of a modern building envelope against the unique aerosol challenges presented by wildfire. Aerosol was continuously and concurrently collected indoors and immediately outdoors before and during wildfire events. Conventional thermal-optical methods were used for OC and EC quantitation, water-soluble total organic carbon (TOC) analysis for WSOC content, and 3D excitation-emission matrices (EEM) were used to characterize associated fluorescent properties. During regional wildfire days, averaged outdoor PM$_(10), PM$_(2.5) and OC levels were in excess of 10 ug/m$^3, while EC levels were significantly lower—averaging at least an order of magnitude less (< 0.5 ug/m$^3). Between 45% and 39% of averaged outdoor EC levels were found indoors. As judged by the EEM spectra presented by WSOC components, wildfires impacted the HULIS in both fine and coarse aerosol – this HULIS signature was consistently recovered indoors following fires. We have demonstrated that wildfires have unique aerosol signatures, that these signatures can be used to assess the penetration performance of buildings, and that modern HVAC systems may not be able isolate high-occupancy indoor environments from some of the unique air pollution challenges presented by local or regional wildfires.