Wildfires can be extremely destructive to communities and ecosystems. However, the full scope of the ecological damage is often hard to assess, in part due to limited information on the types of chemicals introduced to affected landscapes and waterways. The objective of this study was to establish a sampling, analytical, and interpretive framework to effectively identify and monitor contaminants of emerging concern in environmental water samples impacted by wildfire runoff. A nontargeted analysis consisting of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC/TOF-MS) was conducted on stormwater samples from watersheds in the City of Santa Rosa and Sonoma and Napa Counties, USA, after the three most destructive fires during the October 2017 Northern California firestorm. Chemicals potentially related to wildfires were selected from the thousands of chromatographic features detected through a screening method that compared samples from fire-impacted sites versus unburned reference sites. This screening led to high confidence identifications of 76 potentially fire-related compounds. Authentic standards were available for 48 of these analytes, and 46 were confirmed by matching mass spectra and GC × GC retention times. Of these 46 compounds, 37 had known commercial and industrial uses as intermediates or ingredients in plastics, personal care products, pesticides, and as food additives. Nine compounds had no known uses or sources and may be oxidation products resulting from burning of natural or anthropogenic materials. Preliminary examination of potential toxicity associated with the 46 compounds, conducted via online databases and literature review, indicated limited data availability. Regional comparison suggested that more structural damage may yield a greater number of unique, potentially wildfire-related compounds. We recommend further study of post-wildfire runoff using the framework described here, which includes hypothesis-driven site selection and nontargeted analysis, to uncover potentially significant stormwater contaminants not routinely monitored after wildfires and inform risk assessment. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;17:1179–1193. © 2021 SETAC

中文翻译：

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对野火释放到雨水径流中的污染物进行非针对性调查的框架：旧金山湾区北部的案例研究

野火可能对社区和生态系统造成极大破坏。然而，生态破坏的全部范围通常很难评估，部分原因是关于引入受影响景观和水道的化学品类型的信息有限。本研究的目的是建立一个采样、分析和解释框架，以有效识别和监测受野火径流影响的环境水样中新出现的污染物。对来自美国圣罗莎市、索诺玛和纳帕县的流域的雨水样本进行了由综合二维气相色谱与飞行时间质谱联用 (GC × GC/TOF-MS) 组成的非靶向分析，在 2017 年 10 月北加州大火期间发生的三场最具破坏性的火灾之后。可能与野火有关的化学品是从通过筛选方法检测到的数千种色谱特征中选出的，该方法比较了来自受火灾影响地点与未燃烧参考地点的样本。该筛选导致对 76 种可能与火灾相关的化合物进行了高可信度鉴定。这些分析物中的 48 种有真实的标准品，46 种通过匹配质谱和 GC × GC 保留时间得到确认。在这 46 种化合物中，37 种具有已知的商业和工业用途，可用作塑料、个人护理产品、杀虫剂和食品添加剂的中间体或成分。九种化合物没有已知用途或来源，可能是燃烧天然或人为材料产生的氧化产物。与 46 种化合物相关的潜在毒性的初步检查，通过在线数据库和文献综述进行，表明可用数据有限。区域比较表明，更多的结构损坏可能会产生更多独特的、可能与野火有关的化合物。我们建议使用此处描述的框架进一步研究野火后径流，其中包括假设驱动的选址和非目标分析，以发现野火后未定期监测的潜在重要雨水污染物，并为风险评估提供信息。Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021；17：1179-1193。© 2021 SETAC