Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Smoke Yields of Non-Methane Organic Gases from Combustion of Small-Scale Residential Building Surrogates

Published

October 9, 2025

Author(s)

Michael Link, Nathan Lima, Aika Davis, Ryan Falkenstein-Smith, Rodney Bryant, Thomas Cleary, Dustin Poppendieck

Abstract

At the wildland-urban interface (WUI) structural fires can generate non-methane organic gases (NMOGs) from burning urban fuels like structural lumber, plastics, and carpet. These NMOGs can contaminate nearby homes and affect indoor air quality. NMOGs have been quantified extensively from biomass burning, but few measurements exist for WUI fires that include structures. We calculated yields (grams of gas per kg of dry fuel burned) of 201 NMOGs generated from burning small-scale residential building surrogates. We also varied the size and packing density of the surrogates to modulate ventilation and mimic how reduced oxygen combustion conditions in enclosed fires might affect NMOG yields. We find that reduced aromatics (e.g., benzene, naphthalene) show higher yields from combustion of the surrogates compared to biomass, whereas oxygenated NMOGs (e.g., formaldehyde, acetaldehyde) yields are lower. Using factor analysis of NMOG time series, we observe chemical signatures from the combustion of synthetic polymers, wood, and mixed fuel char and identify potential air tracers for WUI fire contamination in homes. The results of this study indicate that the small-scale residential building surrogate design used here may be a useful experimental tool for the generation and further study of smoke typical of WUI fires.

Citation

ACS ES&T Air

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestair.5c00187

Local Download

Keywords

wildland-urban interface, structure fire, smoke yields, non-methane organic gases, proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry

Citation

Link, M. , Lima, N. , Davis, A. , Falkenstein-Smith, R. , Bryant, R. , Cleary, T. and Poppendieck, D. (2025), Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Smoke Yields of Non-Methane Organic Gases from Combustion of Small-Scale Residential Building Surrogates, ACS ES&T Air, [online], https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestair.5c00187, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=960090 (Accessed December 2, 2025)