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The Chemistry of Fires in the Wildland Urban Interface
Citation:
Holder, A. The Chemistry of Fires in the Wildland Urban Interface. Pittcon, San Diego, CA, February 24 - 28, 2024.
Impact/Purpose:
Wildfires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) burn homes and vehicles leading to potentially greater emissions of hazardous air pollutants than from wildfires in natural lands. The greater proximity of these wildfires to population centers and the potentially more toxic emissions makes fires in the WUI a unique threat to public health. This presentation provides an overview of type of emissions expected from WUI fires and goes into detail on how to measure these emissions and why the emissions measurements are important for our understanding of the impact of WUI fires on human health and the environment.
Description:
Wildland fires have increased in magnitude over the past several decades, burning millions of acres of natural landscape each year. Over this same time, the number of communities that are adjacent to or intermixed among wildlands has increased. This intersection has led to an increase of wildfires in the wildland urban interface (WUI). These intense WUI fires can burn through entire communities consuming not only the natural landscape but also the structures and vehicles contained within them. While there are similarities in the combustible materials in natural vegetation and the urban environment, urban materials also contain a range of other chemicals not found in nature that likely produce smoke with a very different chemical composition from other wildfires. This presentation will examine the current state of knowledge of the emissions from WUI fires and identify some of the challenges in measuring some of the suspected chemical compounds emitted into the atmosphere. The views expressed in this abstract are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
