Aerosol and Trace Gas Emission Factors from the Combustion of Manufactured Wood Construction Materials

KATHERINE BENEDICT, James E. Lee, Nitin Kumar, Prakash Badal, Michele Barbato, Manvendra Dubey, Allison Aiken, Los Alamos National Laboratory

     Abstract Number: 374
     Working Group: Burning Questions of Aerosol Emissions, Chemistry, and Impacts from Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires

Abstract
Wildfires continue to increase in intensity and are more often threatening the wildland urban interface (WUI) where human-made fuels do not have well characterized combustion emissions. The burning of these fuels generates emissions to the atmosphere with local, regional and long-range impacts to the Earth system. The emissions from building materials used in home construction under flaming and smoldering conditions that impact human health, visibility, and air quality are the focus of this work. Here, we quantify emission factors of aerosols and trace gases including formaldehyde (HCHO), particulate matter, and black carbon (BC) from single-source wood-based construction materials using high-time resolution measurements. Our results indicate that, similar to natural fuels, the aerosol optical properties were more related to combustion conditions than fuel type. We observed significant variability in gas and particle emissions with BC mass fractions up to 0.4 and HCHO emission factors up to 6 g/kg, indicating potentially more toxic emissions for WUI-sourced fuels. Consistent trends include high HCHO and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions for smoldering conditions, and higher carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and BC for flaming conditions, indicating different impacts to humans and the Earth system when there are different conditions at the source, including water content of the fuel and fire intensity. These observations highlight the need to better characterize emissions for a larger range of materials found in urban areas to assess large-scale Earth system and human health impacts for WUI fires.