Pollutants from wildfire smoke can remain inside homes for weeks, but vacuuming, mopping and dusting result in lower levels of volatile compounds in the air
By Chen Ly
13 October 2023
Cleaning surfaces can reduce the levels of polluting gases in the air inside a house
Panther Media / Alamy
Cleaning floors and surfaces is the most effective way to reduce a major type of air pollution from wildfires that can persist inside buildings.
Smoke from wildfires contains pollutants including particulates, carbon monoxide and chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Many of these VOCs can be dangerous to people’s health. Formic acid, for example, can irritate the eyes and nose, while a compound called furan is a possible carcinogen.
“There’s been an increasing number of wildfire events across the globe,” says Delphine Farmer at Colorado State University. “So we wanted to study the chemistry of wildfire smoke and how it interacts inside buildings.”
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To replicate wildfire conditions, Farmer and her colleagues injected smoke from burning pinewood chips into a test house 24 times over the course of two weeks.
They found that the VOCs tended to collect on surfaces in the house, but once the smoke dissipated, they would be released into the air again.
The team also found that some VOCs were buried quite deep into surfaces, which suggests that the compounds could take weeks or months to be re-emitted, says Farmer.