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Outdoor and indoor concentrations of size-resolved particulate matter during a wildfire episode in interior Alaska and the impact of ventilation

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Abstract

Residential areas are being increasingly impacted by wildfire smoke that causes hazardous local ambient air quality conditions. Poor outdoor air quality also exacerbates the quality of indoor air as smoke particles penetrate the building envelope or the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) filtration systems. In this work, we investigate the impact of wildfire-affected poor ambient air quality on indoor air particulate matter during a wildfire episode in June 2015 in interior Alaska. We measured size-resolved (0.3–10 μm) particle number counts (PNC; numbers/cm3) and calculated particle mass concentrations (PMC; μg/m3) outside and inside of three buildings in Fairbanks, Alaska, during this summer wildfire event. For comparison, the measurements were repeated during a no-wildfire period in summer 2017. Our results show that the fire episode increased the total PNC by factors of 189.4–244 in the outdoor air and by 19.5–150 in the indoor air compared to the total PNC measured during a non-fire season. The PNC was primarily dominated by particles in the size range 0.3–1 μm (> 99%) at all locations during the fire season, whereas the PMC was dominated by particles in the size range from 2.5 to 10 μm (40–67%). The indoor to outdoor ratio (I/O) of PNC during the fire season was significantly lower for an unventilated building (I/O = 0.13 ± 0.001) as compared to those with active (filtered) ventilation (I/O = 0.76 ± 0.11 and 0.62 ± 0.02), suggesting that lower efficiency filters (< Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value or MERV rating 11) often used in residential and public buildings may not control the infiltration of smaller smoke particles during a wildfire event. Although this study had a small sample size, the limited data collected here indicates that sheltering in a closed, non-ventilated building may be an effective strategy to reduce exposure to particulate matter during wildfires, given that there are no significant indoor source(s) of particulates and that the air leakage is insignificant. Finally, this study also shows that particulate mass concentrations (μg/m3) may not fully describe the relative differences between indoor and outdoor air quality especially during wildfire episodes.

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Data availability

The data is available upon request to the authors. The data for Fig. 1 was obtained from US Environmental Protection Agency (https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/air-data-daily-air-quality-tracker).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the homeowners of house A and house B for allowing particulate measurements in their homes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Water and Environmental Research Center, ELIF Building, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA

    Subhabrata Dev, David Barnes & Srijan Aggarwal

  2. Mineral Industry Research Laboratory, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA

    Subhabrata Dev

  3. Department of Civil, Geological, and Environmental Engineering, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Duck 245, 1760 Tanana Loop, Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA

    David Barnes, Abdul Kadir & Srijan Aggarwal

  4. Department of Civil, Environmental, & Construction Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA

    Raghu Betha

Authors
  1. Subhabrata Dev
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  2. David Barnes
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  3. Abdul Kadir
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Correspondence to David Barnes or Srijan Aggarwal.

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Highlights

• Interior Alaska experienced poor air quality during June 2015 due to wildfires.

• Particle mass and counts were measured in outdoor and indoor air.

• Fire episode increased the particle counts by up to 150 times in indoor air.

• Unventilated building had lower indoor particles than those with MERV 11 filtration.

• Particulate number concentration is important to be monitored during wildfire episodes.

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Dev, S., Barnes, D., Kadir, A. et al. Outdoor and indoor concentrations of size-resolved particulate matter during a wildfire episode in interior Alaska and the impact of ventilation. Air Qual Atmos Health 15, 149–158 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-021-01094-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-021-01094-8

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