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Measurements from the Fire Influence on Regional and Global Environments Experiment (FIREX) Fire Lab Mini Chamber Experiment

Data files

Aug 06, 2019 version files 10.06 MB

Abstract

All experiments were conducted during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments Experiment (FIREX) lab study, which took place at the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab in Missoula, MT, USA during November, 2016. Experiments focused on refining our understanding of emissions and short timescale processing. The focus was on measuring fuels or combustion conditions that are characteristic of the western U.S. that may be under-sampled by the fire research community. Numerous types of biomass were combusted in a large chamber (12 x 12 x 19 m) and the smoke sampled to provide information on the physical, chemical, and optical properties of the resulting smoke (i.e., particulate and gas emissions). The general fuels types combusted included (exclusively or in combination): duff, dung, excelsior, straw, litter, untreated lumber, rotten debris, woody debris, shrub, herbaceous, and canopy biomass. Smoke from these burns was sampled into a small photochemical reaction chamber (the "mini Chamber"). The smoke from the mini Chamber was characterized using a variety of instrumentation: an Aerodyne high resolution aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-AMS) for non-refractory submicron particulate matter (NR-PM); an Aerodyne soot photometer aerosol mass spectrometer (SP-AMS) in "laser-only" mode, for refractory black carbon and NR-PM components mixed with BC; a DMT single particle soot photometer (SP2) for refractory black carbon; a Brechtel scanning electrical mobility sizer (SEMS), for particle size distributions; the UC Davis cavity ringdown/photoacoustic spectrometer (CRD-PAS), for particle absorption and extinction at 405 nm and 532 nm; a DMT PASS-3, for absorption and extinction at 781 nm; a thermodenuder, for heating particles to 300 degC for ~ 5 seconds; a proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (PTRMS); and an iodide reagent ion chemical ionization mass spectrometer (I-CIMS). Not all measurements from all of these instruments are archived here; full data sets can be downloded from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/projects/firex/firelab/

Measurements were made of both unprocessed (fresh) and photochemically aged particles and gases.