Hazardous Air Pollutants in Fresh and Aged Western US Wildfire Smoke and Implications for Long-Term Exposure

Wildfires
have a significant adverse impact on air quality in the
United States (US). To understand the potential health impacts of
wildfire smoke, many epidemiology studies rely on concentrations of
fine particulate matter (PM) as a smoke tracer. However, there are
many gas-phase hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) identified by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) that are also present in wildfire smoke plumes.
Using observations from the Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud
Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption, and Nitrogen (WE-CAN), a 2018 aircraft-based
field campaign that measured HAPs and PM in western US wildfire smoke
plumes, we identify the relationships between HAPs and associated
health risks, PM, and smoke age. We find the ratios between acute,
chronic noncancer, and chronic cancer HAPs health risk and PM in smoke
decrease as a function of smoke age by up to 72% from fresh (<1
day of aging) to old (>3 days of aging) smoke. We show that acrolein,
formaldehyde, benzene, and hydrogen cyanide are the dominant contributors
to gas-phase HAPs risk in smoke plumes. Finally, we use ratios of
HAPs to PM along with annual average smoke-specific PM to estimate
current and potential future smoke HAPs risks.