A detailed chemical kinetic mechanism for the simulation of the gas-phase combustion and pyrolysis of biomass-derived fuels was compiled by assembling selected reaction subsets from existing mechanisms (parents). The mechanism, here referred to as "angstrom A," includes reaction subsets for the oxidation of hydrogen (H-2), carbon monoxide (CO), light hydrocarbons (C-1 and C-2), and methanol (CH3OH). The mechanism also takes into account reaction subsets of nitrogen pollutants, including the reactions relevant to staged combustion, reburning, and selective noncatalytic reduction (SNCR). The angstrom A mechanism was validated against suitable experimental data from the literature. Overall, the angstrom A mechanism gave more accurate predictions than three other mechanisms of reference, although the reference mechanisms performed better occasionally. The predictions from angstrom A were also found to be consistent with the predictions of its parent mechanisms within most of their range of validity, thus transferring the validity of the parents to the inheriting mechanism (angstrom A). In parametric studies the angstrom A mechanism predicted that the effect of methanol on combustion and pollutants is often similar to that of light hydrocarbons, but it also showed that there are important exceptions, thus suggesting that methanol should be taken into account when simulating biomass combustion. To our knowledge, the angstrom A mechanism is currently the only mechanism that accounts for the chemistry of methanol and nitrogen relevant to the gas-phase combustion and pyrolysis of biomass-derived fuels. (c) 2007 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.