Emissions from small-scale residential biomass combustion are a major source of indoor and outdoor particulate matter (PM) air pollution, and the performance of stoves, boilers, and fireplaces have been shown to be influenced both by fuel properties, technology, and user behavior (firing procedures). Still, rather scarce information is available regarding the relative importance of these variables for the particle characteristics and emissions of different particulate components, e.g., soot, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), oxy-PAH, and metals. In particular, the behavior of different wood fuels under varying firing procedures and combustion conditions has not been studied thoroughly. Therefore, the objective of this work was to elucidate the influence of wood species and combustion conditions on particle emission characteristics in a typical Nordic residential wood stove. The emissions from four different wood species were investigated at two controlled combustion conditions, including nominal and high burn rates, with a focus on physical and chemical properties of the fine particulate matter. Considerably elevated carbonaceous particle emissions (soot and organics) were found during high burn rate conditions, which were associated with a shift in particle number size distribution toward a higher fraction of larger particles. In some cases, as here seen for pine, the specific fuel properties can affect the combustion performance and thereby also influence particle and PAH emissions. For the inorganic ash particles, the content in the fuel, and not burning conditions, was found to be the main determining factor, as seen by the increased emissions of alkali salts for aspen. Wood stove emission data on 11 specific oxy-PAHs, together with 45 PAHs, were combined with controlled variations of burning conditions and fuels. The oxy-PAH/PAH ratio during a high burn rate was observed to increase, suggesting an enrichment of particulate oxy-PAH. Accordingly, the main influence on emission performance and particle characteristics was seen between different burn rates, and this study clearly illustrates the major importance of proper operation to avoid unfavorable burning condition, regardless of the wood species used.