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Fire has a role in ecosystem services; naturally produced wildfires are important for the sustainability of many terrestrial biomes and fire is one of nature's primary carbon-cycling mechanisms. Under a warming climate, it is likely that fire frequency and severity will increase…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Administration, Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Models, Regulations and Legislation
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: climate change, biomass burning, policy, air quality

Several U.S. state and tribal agencies and other countries have implemented a methodology developed in the arid intermountain western U.S. where short-term (1- to 3-hr) particulate matter (PM) with aerodynamic diameters less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) concentrations are estimated from…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: smoke effects, wildfires, air quality, health factors, fire management, smoke management

Among the key issues in smoke management is predicting the magnitude and location of smoke effects. These vary in severity from hazardous (acute health conditions and drastic visibility impairment to transportation) to nuisance (regional haze), and occur across a range of scales…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES, TTRS
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: smoke effects, wildfires, air quality, particulates, pollution, Canada, Mississippi, Tennessee, fire management, smoke management, air-quality impacts, forest fires, atmospheric transport, lower stratosphere, stochastic models, plume rise, simulation, system, dispersion, smoke modeling, smoke transport, smoke prediction systems

Atmospheric organic aerosol concentrations depend in part on the gas-particle partitioning of primary organic aerosol (POA) emissions. Consequently, heating and dilution were used to investigate the volatility of biomass-burning smoke particles from combustion of common North…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models
Region(s): Northern Rockies
Keywords: biomass burning, organic aerosols, gas-particle partitioning, volatility distributions

Smoke from wildfires has adverse biological and social consequences, and various lines of evidence suggest that smoke concentrations in the future may be more intense, more frequent, more widespread, or all of the above. In this document, we review the essential ingredients of a…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fire Effects, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: climate change, smoke transport, smoke prediction systems, wildfire regime, feedbacks, coupled models

Satellite based fire radiant energy retrievals are widely applied to assess biomass consumed and emissions at regional to global scales. A known potential source of uncertainty in biomass burning estimates arises from fuel moisture but this impact has not been quantified in…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fuels, Mapping, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: fuel moisture, remote sensing, biomass burning, FRE - Fire Radiative Energy, FRP - Fire Radiative Power

The Fire Modeling Institute (FMI) brings the best available fire and fuel science and technology developed throughout the research community to bear in fire-related management issues. Although located within the Fire, Fuel, and Smoke Science Program of the U.S. Forest Service…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fuels, Mapping, Models, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: MPB - mountain pine beetle, smoke science research, Fire Modeling Institute

The term 'backfire' refers to a commonly used method for prescribed burning in which the igniter sets a line of fire that slowly backs into the wind. This technique should not be confused with the colloquial use of the term 'backfire' for 'suppression fire,' which refers to any…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Prescribed Fire, Safety
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: fire intensity, backfire

While North American ecosystems vary widely in their ecology and natural historical fire regimes, they are unified in benefitting from prescribed fire when judiciously applied with the goal of maintaining and restoring native ecosystem composition, structure, and function. On a…
Person:
Year: 2013
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, International, National
Keywords: Canada, fire benefits, ecosystem health, historic fire regimes

Fuel consumption specifies the amount of vegetative biomass consumed during wildland fire. It is a two-stage process of pyrolysis and combustion that occurs simultaneously and at different rates depending on the characteristics and condition of the fuel, weather, topography, and…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fuels, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: carbon emissions, FERA - Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team, fuel consumption, wildland fire emissions

Fuel Loading Models (FLMs) and Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCSs) fuelbeds are used throughout wildland fire science and management to simplify fuel inputs into fire behavior and effects models, but they have yet to be thoroughly evaluated with field data. In this…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES, TTRS
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fuels, Mapping, Models
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: FIA - Forest Inventory and Analysis, FCCS - Fuel Characteristic Classification System, fuel loading, LANDFIRE, FERA - Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team, surface fuels, fuel type characteristics, dead fuels, fuel models, fuel types, wildfires, woody fuels, duff, litter, soil temperature, fire management, fuel management

As forest carbon offset projects become more popular, professional foresters are providing their expertise to support them. But when several members of the Society of American Foresters questioned the science and assumptions used to design the projects, the organization decided…
Person:
Year: 2013
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, National
Keywords: forest management, carbon offsets, greenhouse gas mitigation

First order fire effects are those that concern the direct or indirect or immediate consequences of fire. First order fire effects form an important basis for prediction secondary effects such as tree regeneration plant succession, and changes in site productivity, but these…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fuels, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: FOFEM - First Order Fire Effects Model, duff, moisture regimes, soil heating, fuel consumption, tree mortality

Sequestration of carbon (C) in forests has the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change by offsetting future emissions of greenhouse gases. However, in dry temperate forests, wildfire is a natural disturbance agent with the potential to release large fluxes of C into…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fuels, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): California, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Southwest
Keywords: fire severity, literature review, carbon dynamics, carbon sequestration, FERA - Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team, fuel treatment

Fuel consumption predictions are necessary to accurately estimate or model fire effects, including pollutant emissions during wildland fires. Fuel and environmental measurements on a series of operational prescribed fires were used to develop empirical models for predicting fuel…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fuels, Models, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain
Keywords: Artemisia tridentata, big sagebrush, area burned, shrubs, burn season, fuel consumption

The worldwide 'wildfire' problem is headlined by the loss of human lives and homes, but it applies generally to any adverse effects of unplanned fires, as events or regimes, on a wide range of environmental, social, and economic assets. The problem is complex and contingent,…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Prescribed Fire, Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: biodiversity, fire management, fire regime, adaptation, policy, fatalities, disaster, assets

Models of fire behavior and effects do not always make accurate predictions, and there is not enough systematically gathered data to validate them. To help advance fire behavior and fire effects model development, the Joint Fire Science Program is helping fund the RxCADRE, which…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fire Effects, Fuels, Models, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: aircraft, fire data, RxCADRE

[from the text] Land managers and officials need to understand the diverse public opinions toward smoke from wildland fires; however, a very limited amount of research has been conducted on this topic. Hence, land and fire managers are largely uncertain about society's…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Safety, Social Science
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: escaped fire, public perception, trust, public health, public attitudes

At the request of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Equipment and Technology Committee, the National Technology and Development Center undertook a project to determine the exposure levels of wildland smoke to firefighters. In 2010, at the request of the NWCG Risk…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Safety
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: carcinogen, respirable dust, inhalation irritants, particulate exposure, vegetative smoke

Diagnostic carbon cycle models produce estimates of net ecosystem production (NEP, the balance of net primary production and heterotrophic respiration) by integrating information from (i) satellite-based observations of land surface vegetation characteristics; (ii) distributed…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: Canada, carbon flux, atmospheric inversion, NEP - Net Ecosystem Productivity, rivers, Mexico, biomass burning, NEE - net ecosystem exchange

Managers and policy-makers across broad disciplines and organizations are calling for a better understanding of public opinion on natural resource issues. One such issue is that of fire and its role in the management of our forests and rangelands. Public perceptions of fuel…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fuels, Prescribed Fire, Social Science
Region(s): California, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Southern
Keywords: fuel reduction, public opinion, fire use, survey, public perceptions

Several state air quality agencies have developed policies to issue air quality health index (AQI) warnings based on low values of visual range. Visual range has been defined in the context of how far away a black object has to be such that it is just noticeable or visible. This…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: air quality, visual range, PM2.5 emissions, particulate matter (PM) concentrations, AQI - Air Quality Index

Filter-based samplers have long been employed by monitoring networks to measure aerosol mass concentrations because they are robust and the collected filters can be used for analysis of speciated mass concentrations. However, filter-based samplers have several disadvantages.…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: NAAQS - National Ambient Air Quality Standards, PM2.5 emissions, PM10 emissions, continuous measurements

Before about 1970, visibility was meant only to denote the human capability to detect, recognize, and identify objects by means of the human visual mechanism. During the 1970s, as energy development in the form of strip mines and coal-fired power plants with associated emissions…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Safety
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: air quality, haze, public health, urban air pollution, urban visibility

In the US, wildfires and prescribed burning present significant challenges to air regulatory agencies attempting to achieve and maintain compliance with air quality regulations. Fire emission factors (EF) are essential input for the emission models used to develop wildland fire…
Person:
Year: 2013
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models
Region(s): Northern Rockies
Keywords: air quality, combustion efficiency