Characterizing emissions, chemistry, and health impacts of aged wildfire smoke in a western US city

Jin, Lixu; Tan, Lu; Ketcherside, Damien T.; Selimovic, Vanessa; Nauman, Keri; Yokelson, Robert J.; Hu, Lu

doi:10.5194/acp-26-11047-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 15

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-11047-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-11047-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 15

Research article

|

07 Aug 2026

Research article |

| 07 Aug 2026

Characterizing emissions, chemistry, and health impacts of aged wildfire smoke in a western US city

Lixu Jin, Lu Tan, Damien T. Ketcherside, Vanessa Selimovic, Keri Nauman, Robert J. Yokelson, and Lu Hu

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-11047-2026-supplement

Data sets

Missoula 2020 wildfire air quality observations and model simulations supporting: Characterizing emissions, chemistry, and health impacts of aged wildfire smoke in a western US city L. Jin https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18209324

Model code and software

Analysis code for ’Characterizing emissions, chemistry, and health impacts of aged wildfire smoke in a western US city’, version 1.0.1, L. Jin https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21703742

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Short summary

We measured air pollution hour by hour in a United States city during a wildfire-smoke episode in 2020 and compared it with a computer air-quality model. Ozone increased in light smoke but leveled off or declined in heavy smoke, a pattern the model missed. The model also underestimated smoke pollution and the resulting cancer and short-term health risks, showing that better representations of wildfire emissions and smoke chemistry are needed for reliable forecasts and risk assessment.