Many studies indicated that biomass burning exerts important influence on the air quality and human health.This paper reviewed the recent resarch progress of source apportionment of biomass burning and other urban air pollution sources,which is based on the study of organic compounds and organic tracers emitted from biomass burning.Scholars from various countries have presented their research results and progress.Meanwhile,we also summarized several methods to detect the organic matters in particulate samples during the experiment,which is proved to be possible and can be used effectively and simply It could provide useful information for future rearch.