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An algorithm for retrieving nighttime aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day-Night Band (DNB) observations of reflected moonlight is presented for rural areas during the western U.S. fire seasons. The algorithm uses the UNified…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Mapping, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: AOD - aerosol optical depth, retrieval, algorithms, VIIRS - Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, DNB - day-night band, moonlight observation, smoke transport, diurnal cycle, rural, air quality

Wildland firefighters are exposed to smoke-containing particulate matter (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) while suppressing wildfires. From 2015 to 2017, the U.S. Forest Service conducted a field study collecting breathing zone measurements of PM4 (particulate matter…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Safety
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: wildland firefighters, PM - particulate matter, VOC - volatile organic compounds, WE-CAN - Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption, and Nitrogen, smoke exposure, wildfires

Recently, the effect of large-scale fires on the global environment has attracted attention. Satellite observation data are used for global estimation of fire CO2 emissions, and available data sources are increasing. Although several CO2 emission inventories have already been…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Mapping
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: CO2 emissions, CO2 - carbon dioxide, biomass burning, fire map, land cover map, aboveground biomass

Anthropogenic carbon emissions from fires impact the global carbon budget and contribute to global warming. However, due to the lack of inventory data, little was known about how carbon emissions differed between human-caused and lightning-caused fires previously. In this study…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): California, Eastern, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest
Keywords: wildfire, carbon emissions, biomass burning, human-caused fires, burned area, drought, lightning-caused fires, climate change mitigation

Ecosystems require access to key nutrients like nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) to sustain growth and healthy function. However, excessive deposition can also damage ecosystems through nutrient imbalances, leading to changes in productivity and shifts in ecosystem structure. While…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Ecology, Fire Effects, Models, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): California, Eastern, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest
Keywords: wildfires, wildland fire, N - nitrogen, nitrogen deposition, ecosystem impacts, S - sulfur, atmospheric chemistry modeling, tree growth, tree survival, CMAQ - Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System

This study investigates the impacts of African wildfire aerosols (primary organic carbon, black carbon and sulfate) on the Northern Hemispheric in January. We found that wildfire aerosols emitted from equatorial Africa result in two mid-to-high latitudes atmospheric Rossby wave…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: Africa, Europe, wildfire, aerosol, teleconnection, black carbon, land surface warming, CAM5.3 - Community Atmosphere Model version 5.3, radiative flux

Climate change is intensifying global wildfire activity, and people and wildlife are increasingly exposed to hazardous air pollution during large-scale smoke events. Although wildfire smoke is considered a growing risk to public health, few studies have investigated the impacts…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: air quality, wildlife behavior, wildlife health, wildfire, health effects, wildlife movement, air pollution, conservation, climate change

This SMP identifies the responsibilities of federal and state land managers and the Utah Division of Air Quality (DAQ) to coordinate procedures that mitigate the impacts of prescribed fire on air quality, visibility, and public safety, in terms of smoke. This plan is designed to…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke
Region(s): Rocky Mountain
Keywords:

The challenges of the 2020 Fire Year have validated the Cohesive Strategy and proven its foundational value for additional success and achievement across boundaries and landscapes in the West. The following pages offer a snapshot of 2020 activities and successes in the Western…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Administration, Aquatic, Aviation, Climate, Communications, Economics, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fire Ecology, Fire Effects, Fire History, Fire Occurrence, Fire Prevention, Fuels, Hazard and Risk, Intelligence, Logistics, Mapping, Models, Monitoring and Inventory, Outreach, Planning, Prescribed Fire, Regulations and Legislation, Restoration and Rehabilitation, Safety, Social Science, Weather, Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (Cohesive Strategy), wildfire, wildland fire

The changes in the concentration and composition of biomass-burning organic aerosol (OA) downwind of a major wildfire are simulated using the one-dimensional Lagrangian chemical transport model PMCAMx-Trj. A base case scenario is developed based on realistic fire-plume…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: volatility basis set, biomass burning, air quality modeling, organic aerosols, wildfires, secondary organic aerosol, PM - particulate matter

Combining multiple sources of information on atmospheric composition, wildland fire emissions, and fire area burned, we link decadal air quality trends in Western US urban centers with wildland fire activity during the months of August and September for the years 2000–2019. We…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models, Safety
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: PM - particulate matter, PM2.5, AOD - aerosol optical depth, postwildfire, NAAQS - National Ambient Air Quality Standards, air quality, burned area, urban areas, respiratory health, generalized additive modeling

Wildfire activity in the western United States (US) has been increasing, a trend that has been correlated with changing patterns of temperature and precipitation associated with climate change. Health effects associated with exposure to wildfire smoke and fine particulate matter…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Economics, Emissions and Smoke, Safety
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, climate change, NAAQS - National Ambient Air Quality Standards, wildfire, human health, emergency department visits, hospital visit, mortality, morbidity, black carbon, organic carbon

Emissions of ammonia (NH3), oxides of nitrogen (NOx; NO +NO2), and nitrous oxide (N2O) from biomass burning were quantified on a global scale for 2001 to 2015. On average biomass burning emissions at a global scale over the period were as follows: 4.53 ± 0.51 Tg NH3 year−1, 14.…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: climate change, biomass burning, wildfires, N2O - nitrous oxide, ammonia

Smoke from fires significantly influences climate, weather, and human health. Fire smoke is traditionally detected using an aerosol index calculated from spectral contrast changes. However, such methods usually miss thin smoke plumes. It also remains challenging to accurately…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Occurrence
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: smoke detection, aerosol index, aerosol scattering, spectral signature, spatial standard deviation, VIIRS - Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite

Climate change and human activities have drastically altered the natural wildfire balance in the Western US and increased population health risks due to exposure to pollutants from fire smoke. Using dynamically downscaled climate model projections, we estimated additional asthma…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Economics, Emissions and Smoke, Models, Planning, Safety
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: asthma, PM - particulate matter, PM2.5, wildfire, healthcare, health impacts, CAM4 - Community Atmosphere Model v4

Accurate fire emissions inventories are crucial to predict the impacts of wildland fires on air quality and atmospheric composition. Two traditional approaches are widely used to calculate fire emissions: a satellite-based top-down approach and a fuels-based bottom-up approach.…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: FIREX‐AQ - Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality, remote sensing, smoke plumes

In this study, we present a nationwide machine learning model for hourly PM2.5 estimation for the continental United States (US) using high temporal resolution Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-16) Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) data, meteorological variables…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Mapping, Models, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): California, Eastern, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest
Keywords: PM - particulate matter, PM2.5, machine learning, GOES-16, AOD - aerosol optical depth, California wildfires, ECMWF - European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, spatial-temporal analysis

We use observations of acyl peroxynitrates (PANs) from the Cross-Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) to investigate PANs over the western U.S. during the summer 2018 wildfire season. This period coincides with the Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption,…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Mapping, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: wildfires, acyl peroxynitrates, PAN - peroxyacetyl nitrate, satellite, WE-CAN - Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption, and Nitrogen, transport, chemical production

Wildfire emissions affect downwind air quality and human health. Predictions of these impacts using models are limited by uncertainties in emissions and chemical evolution of smoke plumes. Using high-time-resolution aircraft measurements, we illustrate spatial variations that…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Mapping, Models, Monitoring and Inventory, Safety
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: biomass burning, wildfire, chemistry, plume, hydroxyl radical, fire plume evolution, air quality, O3 - ozone

Large areal fires, such as those ignited following a nuclear detonation, can inject smoke into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Detailed fire simulations allow for assessment of how local weather interacts with these fires and affects smoke lofting. In this study,…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: WRF-ARW, WRF - Weather Research and Forecasting, smoke injection height, troposphere, smoke simulation

In January 2020, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) requested that EPA, in collaboration with scientific staff in the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), conduct an assessment of…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: WFLC - Wildland Fire Leadership Council, air quality, health impacts

Over the past decade, western North America glaciers experienced strong mass loss. Regional mass loss during the ablation season is influenced by air temperature, but the importance of other factors such as changes in surface albedo remains uncertain. We examine changes in…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): Alaska, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, International
Keywords: glaciers, albedo, Canada, Canadian Rockies, British Columbia, Alberta, forest fire aerosols, MODIS - Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, ERA5 temperature, AOD - aerosol optical depth

The western United States experienced a record-breaking wildfire season in 2020. This study quantifies the contribution of wildfire emissions to the exceedances of health-based National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for fine particles (PM2.5) by comparing two CMAQ…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models, Safety
Region(s): California, Eastern, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest
Keywords: 2020 fire season, biomass burning, aerosol, air quality, exceedance, CMAQ - Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System, PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, human health

Increased prescribed burning is needed to provide a diversity of public benefits, including wildfire hazard reduction, improved forest resilience, and biodiversity conservation. Though rare, escaped burns or significant smoke impacts may result in harm to individuals and…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Hazard and Risk, Prescribed Fire, Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: disaster funds, escaped fires, natural hazards, negligence, fire hazard reduction

Wildland fires involve complicated processes that are challenging to represent in chemical transport models. Recent airborne measurements reveal remarkable chemical tomography in fresh wildland fire plumes, which remain yet to be fully explored using models. Here, we present a…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Models, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: tomography, plumes, wildfire, wildland fire, chemical transport model, O3 - ozone, HONO - nitrous acid, air quality