Articles | Volume 26, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-11047-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-11047-2026
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

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Cited articles

Abatzoglou, J. T., Rupp, D. E., O'Neill, L. W., and Sadegh, M.: Compound Extremes Drive the Western Oregon Wildfires of September 2020, Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, e2021GL092520, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL092520, 2021. 
Akagi, S. K., Burling, I. R., Mendoza, A., Johnson, T. J., Cameron, M., Griffith, D. W. T., Paton-Walsh, C., Weise, D. R., Reardon, J., and Yokelson, R. J.: Field measurements of trace gases emitted by prescribed fires in southeastern US pine forests using an open-path FTIR system, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 199–215, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-199-2014, 2014. 
Albores, I. S., Buchholz, R. R., Ortega, I., Emmons, L. K., Hannigan, J. W., Lacey, F., Pfister, G., Tang, W., and Worden, H. M.: Continental-scale Atmospheric Impacts of the 2020 Western U.S. Wildfires, Atmos. Environ., 294, 119436, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2022.119436, 2023. 
Alvarado, L. M. A., Richter, A., Vrekoussis, M., Hilboll, A., Kalisz Hedegaard, A. B., Schneising, O., and Burrows, J. P.: Unexpected long-range transport of glyoxal and formaldehyde observed from the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite during the 2018 Canadian wildfires, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 2057–2072, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2057-2020, 2020. 
American Lung Association: Missoula, MT, https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/msas/missoula-mt (last access: 16 August 2024), 2024. 
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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.
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