EMISSION INVENTORY SOURCE CATEGORY

METHOD SUMMARY

These categories are used to inventory the combustion emissions for 1996 from structure, mobile home, and automobile fires. The Structure fires category includes residential and commercial structures as well as mobile home fires.

ACTIVITY DATA SOURCE: Estimates of building, mobile home, and automobile fires in 1996 were based on data from an annual report generated by the California Fire Incident Reporting System (CFIRS), CA State Fire Marshall's Office.

EMISSION FACTOR SOURCE: Structure fire emission factors for TOG, CO and PM have been obtained from tests on the burning of model wood buildings. These test are cited in the report, "Fires Dynamics of Model Wood Buildings," Fire and Flammability, Vol. 3, p. 336 (October 1972). The emission factor for NOx is assumed to be similar to the factor for municipal refuse listed in AP-42, Section 2.2 and 2.4 (April 1973). These emission factors have been converted to units of pounds per fire using the total amount burned per residential fire. This amount, representing both structural loss and content loss, was calculated using data from the CA State Fire Marshall Office, the Census Bureau, the National Association of Home Builders, and the National Bureau of Standards. CFIRS structure fires data is available on the county level. For those instances where an air basin splits a county, emissions estimates are apportioned based on total housing units as estimated by the California Department of Finance (DOF).

For auto fires, composite emission factors have been calculated as a weighted average of the emission factors listed in AP-42 (April 1973) Table 2.2-1 (uncontrolled auto body incineration) and Table 2.4-1 (open burning of automobile components including upholstery, belts, hoses, and tires burned in common). For automobile fires, sub-county splits between air basins are based on population estimates from DOF.

TEMPORAL DATA: For both categories, the annual activity and the weekly activity are uniform. The daily activity occurs primarily during daylight hours.

CHANGES IN METHOD AND EMISSION ESTIMATES: The differences between the 1995 and 1996 emission estimates for structure fires and automobile fires are primarily due to the difference in the numbers of fire incidents. Increases in emission factors have also affected emission estimates.

DATE OF THE LAST UPDATE: March 1999

GROWTH PARAMETER: For structure fires, the growth parameters were developed by Pechan and are based on occupied housing units. For auto fires, the growth parameters are based on population from the Department of Finance.

STATEWIDE EMISSIONS SUMMARY (1996 - ANNUAL AVERAGE TONS/DAY)

CES No.	TOG	CO	NOX	SOX	PM
47324	0.80	9.63	0.23	0.00	0.62
57307	0.24	0.71	0.02	0.00	0.57
Total	1.04	10.34	0.25	0.00	1.19

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This page last revised on November 19, 2003

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