Evolution of Reactive Organic Compounds and Their Potential Health Risk in Wildfire Smoke

Wildfires are an increasing source of emissions into the air, with health effects modulated by the abundance and toxicity of individual species. In this work, we estimate reactive organic compounds (ROC) in western U.S. wildland forest fire smoke using a combination of observations from the 2019 Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field campaign and predictions from the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. Standard emission inventory methods capture 40-45% of the estimated ROC mass emitted, with estimates of primary organic aerosol particularly low (5-8×). Downwind, gas-phase species abundances in molar units reflect the production of fragmentation products such as formaldehyde and methanol. Mass-based units emphasize larger compounds, which tend to be unidentified at an individual species level, are less volatile, and are typically not measured in the gas phase. Fire emissions are estimated to total 1250 ± 60 g·C of ROC per kg·C of CO, implying as much carbon is emitted as ROC as is emitted as CO. Particulate ROC has the potential to dominate the cancer and noncancer risk of long-term exposure to inhaled smoke, and better constraining these estimates will require information on the toxicity of particulate ROC from forest fires.

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Publication Details

Journal
Environmental Science & Technology
Published
2024-10-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c06187
Citations
12
Primary Topic
Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.52

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article

Evolution of Reactive Organic Compounds and Their Potential Health Risk in Wildfire Smoke

Lu Xu, Forwood Wiser, Joseph M. Katich, Benjamin N. Murphy et al.
12 citations
Environmental Science & Technology
Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
4.52
article

Evolution of Reactive Organic Compounds and Their Potential Health Risk in Wildfire Smoke

Lu Xu, Forwood Wiser, Joseph M. Katich, Benjamin N. Murphy, C. Warneke, V. Faye McNeill, Havala O. T. Pye, Jessica B. Gilman, John D. Crounse, Eric C. Apel, Pedro Campuzano‐Jost, Barron H. Henderson, Jason M. St. Clair, Matthew Mitchell Coggon, L. G. Huey, Jakob Lindaas, T. Nash Skipper, D. R. Blake, Glenn M. Wolfe, Bryan K. Place, Emma L. D’Ambro, Jeff Peischl, Hannah S. Halliday, Hongyu Guo, Demetrios Pagonis, Paul O. Wennberg, Christine Allen, Aaron Lamplugh, Jose Luis Jimenez, Georgios I. Gkatzelis, Thomas Frost Hanisco, Caroline C. Womack
article en
12 citations

Abstract

Wildfires are an increasing source of emissions into the air, with health effects modulated by the abundance and toxicity of individual species. In this work, we estimate reactive organic compounds (ROC) in western U.S. wildland forest fire smoke using a combination of observations from the 2019 Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field campaign and predictions from the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. Standard emission inventory methods capture 40-45% of the estimated ROC mass emitted, with estimates of primary organic aerosol particularly low (5-8×). Downwind, gas-phase species abundances in molar units reflect the production of fragmentation products such as formaldehyde and methanol. Mass-based units emphasize larger compounds, which tend to be unidentified at an individual species level, are less volatile, and are typically not measured in the gas phase. Fire emissions are estimated to total 1250 ± 60 g·C of ROC per kg·C of CO, implying as much carbon is emitted as ROC as is emitted as CO. Particulate ROC has the potential to dominate the cancer and noncancer risk of long-term exposure to inhaled smoke, and better constraining these estimates will require information on the toxicity of particulate ROC from forest fires.

Environmental Science & TechnologyVol. 58(44)
NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US), Weber State University (US), California Institute of Technology (US), Environmental Protection Agency (US), Goddard Space Flight Center (US), Georgia Institute of Technology (US), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (US), University of Colorado Boulder (US), University of California, Irvine (US), Washington University in St. Louis (US), VA Office of Research and Development (US), University of Colorado System (US), NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory (US), Environmental Energy & Engineering (US), Columbia University (US), University of Maryland, Baltimore County (US), Colorado State University (US)
National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, Climate Program Office
Zero hunger
Openalex Percentile: Top 4%
Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
4.52
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