USING a smoke “fingerprint”, researchers can now tell how much air pollution
comes from domestic wood fires, which region the smoke came from, and whether
levels are high enough to justify restrictions on burning.
“We can figure out how much wood smoke is in the air, and exactly who burnt
it,” says Glen Cass of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. “It
contributes to visibility problems and can irritate eyes,” he says.
His latest results, in Environmental Science and Technology (vol 35,
p 2665), list smoke chemicals from six major wood types, including red
maple—the most widely available firewood…
