The FIREX 2016 Missoula Fire Lab Study

The NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratories is organizing FIREX (Fire Influence on Regional and Global Environments Experiment), a multi-year comprehensive study of the impact of North American wildfire on climate and air quality. An extensive set of emission measurements and short-term processing experiments was planned at the Missoula, Montana USFS FireLab as the first organized activity of this project. This experiment involved a selection of fuels representative of North American biomes that are impacted by wildfire, and extensive sets of gas and particle-phase chemical, physical, and optical measurements. Special attention was given to the characterizing the emissions of semi - to extremely low volatility organic compounds (SVOC-ELVOC) that are involved in gas-particle partitioning, the chemical and physical properties of brown carbon, and changes in gas composition and particle properties upon photochemical processing. Some attention was also given to examining current and emerging measurement technologies by thorough instrument/technique intercomparisons. This presentation will give an overview of the 2016 FireLab efforts and provide some preliminary results from the FireLab experiment.