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Toxic Emissions from Fires at the Wildland Urban Interface: Laboratory Measurement of Formaldehyde and Aerosol from Building Materials
KATHERINE BENEDICT, James E. Lee, Kyle Gorkowski, Manvendra Dubey, Allison Aiken, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Abstract Number: 371
Working Group: Wildfire Aerosols
Abstract
Emissions from burning urban fuels including home building materials and plastics has not received much attention, yet are likely to release greater amounts of toxics into the atmosphere. Fires regularly occur in populated areas and are spreading across the wildland urban interface (WUI) threatening neighborhoods with increasing severity due to drought and land use changes. In order characterize the toxicity of urban fires we report on laboratory measurements aerosol and trace gas emissions from burning of targeted building materials. Emissions from plywood, melamine particle board, pressure treated lumber, and MDF, all with known composition are quantified and contrasted with traditional natural hardwood fuels. We report significant emission of formaldehyde, a toxic EPA regulated gas, from plywood in an open wood-stove burner. We also measure the size distribution, soot and metal content of the smoke aerosols and interpret it using the composition of the fuel and the combustion phase. Finally, we will report detailed chemical results of emissions using a new closed-system tube furnace. In these burning experiment temperatures will be slowly ramped up and trace gas emissions from pyrolysis, smoldering and flaming phases are resolved. Our gas phase analysis focuses on formaldehyde (HCHO), CO, and CO2 while aerosol are characterized for their optical properties, organic, inorganic , and black carbon content, and size distribution. While our preliminary analysis did not detect a significant presence of metals in smoke this issue will be explored further with our soot particle aerosol mass spectrometer. Finally, smoke emissions from urban and natural fuels will be contrasted to better attribute their toxicity.