Controlling Factors for Smoke Emissions from Urban and Wildland Fuels

CHRISTIAN CARRICO, John Ryan Himes, Sabina Gulick, Allison Aiken, Katherine Benedict, Kyle Gorkowski, James E. Lee, Alexander Josephson, Jon Reisner, Manvendra Dubey, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

     Abstract Number: 362
     Working Group: Combustion

Abstract
Air quality and climate change concerns drive an increased importance of aerosol emissions from wildland and urban fuels. Recent fires in grasslands and the wildland-urban interface (WUI) such as the Camp, Lahaina, Texas Panhandle, and Marshall fires, underscore the importance of fires in these transitional landscapes. Wildland fire studies here have focused upon U.S. native and invasive species as well as common urban fuels as controlling factors in smoke properties. This research focuses on key aerosol combustion sources including grassland fires at the Konza Prairie in Kansas and emissions from urban fuels measured at the New Mexico Firefighter Training Academy. Key measurements include laboratory, drone-based, and ground-based techniques. Drone-based measurements include air quality sensors to measure PM_2.5 properties including mass concentrations (PurpleAir and similar sensors) and light absorption and its wavelength dependence (micro-aethalometer). Complementary measurements from the ground include aerosol optical depth, filter-based PM_2.5 measurements, CO and CO₂, aerosol hygroscopicity, and meteorological data. Transitory wildfire nature and shifts in the combustion phase as indicated by the Modified Combustion Efficiency (MCE) are clearly observed influencing the dominance of black versus brown carbon aerosols. The field measurements echo some of the key findings of laboratory studies of biomass burning emissions and provide some new insights into the evolving nature of fires in the WUI. Measurement highlights from the field sites as well as laboratory experiments with smoke and its proxies will be discussed.

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