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The literature-spanning several recent decades-describes numerous attempts to characterize the efficacy of cumulonimbus 'Cb' convection as a pollutant pathway connecting the planetary BL to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). The relatively new discovery of…
Person:
Year: 2019
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: aerosols, convection, cloud, cumulonimbus

A novel approach is presented to analyze smoke exposure and provide a metric to quantify health-related impacts. Our results support the current understanding that managing low-intensity fire for ecological benefit reduces exposure when compared to a high-intensity full…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fire Prevention, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): California
Keywords: forest fires, air quality, exposure assessment, remote sensing, fire management, smoke exposure, fire suppression, health

Climate influences vegetation directly and through climate-mediated disturbance processes, such as wildfire. Temperature and area burned are positively associated, conditional on availability of vegetation to burn. Fire is a self-limiting process that is influenced by…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Ecology, Fire Effects, Fuels, Models
Region(s): California
Keywords: Sierra Nevada, climate change, wildfires, climatic factors, vegetation-fire feedbacks, area burned, CO2 - carbon dioxide, PM - particulate matter, fuel availability, fuel flammability

Deforestation from timber harvests and farmland conversions have led to 565 GtCO2 (billion tons of carbon dioxide) being emitted into the atmosphere. Taking into account natural regeneration on forestland, Houghton (2003, 2008) and Houghton et al. (2012) estimate that…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Economics, Emissions and Smoke
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: climate change, land use change, forest carbon, carbon emissions, deforestation, fire management

Carbon monoxide (CO) exposure levels encountered by wildland firefighters (WLFs) throughout their work shift can change considerably within a few minutes due to the varied tasks that are performed and the changing environmental and fire conditions encountered throughout the day…
Person:
Year: 2019
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: firefighters, smoke exposure, CO - carbon monoxide, carboxyhemoglobin, data loggers, elevation, sawyer, shift length

Wildland firefighters engaged in fire suppression activities are often exposed to hazardous air pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and particulate matter (PM2.5) during wildfires with no respiratory protection. Although the most significant exposures to…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Safety
Region(s): California
Keywords: firefighters, ICP - Incident Command Post, PAH - polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PM - particulate matter, PM2.5, wildfires, firefighter exposure

Biomass mapping is used in variety of applications including carbon assessments, emission inventories, and wildland fire and fuel planning. Single values are often applied to individual pixels to represent biomass of classified vegetation, but each biomass estimate has…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fuels, Mapping, Models, Planning
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: C - carbon, biomass, remote sensing, uncertainty, wildland fuel, Canada, fire management

The Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) and the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) initiated the Fire and Smoke Model Experiment (FASMEE) (https://sites.google.com/firenet.gov/fasmee/) by funding Project 15-S-01-01 to identify and collect a set of…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fire Effects, Fuels, Models, Planning, Prescribed Fire, Weather
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: FASMEE - Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment, project management, large fire, experiments, fuel consumption, smoke modeling, fire modeling, energy release, plume rise, smoke transport, smoke dispersion, chemistry

It is a well‐known fact that sometimes a halo display heralds an approaching cyclone, but could a halo display be an indicator of the presence of wildfire smoke and poor air quality? This article presents a few examples of unusual solar halos that formed over altocumulus clouds…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects
Region(s): California
Keywords: air quality, atmosphere

We investigate the air quality impact of record‐breaking wildfires in Southern California during December 5-18, 2017 using the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF‐Chem) in combination with satellite and surface observations. This wildfire event was driven…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Models
Region(s): California
Keywords: air quality, WRF-Chem, WRF - Weather Research and Forecasting, PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, VIIRS - Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, AOD - aerosol optical depth

Wildfire is an essential earth‐system process, impacting ecosystem processes and the carbon cycle. Forest fires are becoming more frequent and severe, yet gaps exist in the modeling of fire on vegetation and carbon dynamics. Strategies for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fuels, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: C - carbon, climate change mitigation, forests, greenhouse gas emissions, tree biomass, biomass consumption, biomass combustion factors

Epidemiological studies consistently show an association between wildfire-related smoke exposure and adverse respiratory health. We conducted a systematic review of evidence in published literature pertaining to heterogeneity of respiratory effects from this exposure in North…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Safety
Region(s): California, Eastern, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest
Keywords: wildfires, respiratory health, heterogeneity, ratio of relative risk, public health

Forest ecosystems sequester approximately 12% of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and efforts to increase forest carbon uptake are central to climate change mitigation policy. Managing forests to store carbon has focused on increasing forested area, decreasing area lost to…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: carbon emissions, climate change, forest carbon, forest management, carbon management

Wildland fire smoke exposure affects a broad proportion of the U.S. population and is increasing due to climate change, settlement patterns and fire seclusion. Significant public health questions surrounding its effects remain, including the impact on cardiovascular disease and…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Mapping, Models, Safety
Region(s): California
Keywords: wildland fire, air quality, exposure, PM - particulate matter, geospatial analysis, public health, chemical transport model, atmospheric modeling, epidemiology

Most of the previous investigations on the relationship between PM2.5 chemical characteristics and wildfire focused on the predictions of particle components concentrations or future pollution scenarios. Little research has focused on trends analyses based on large temporal…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Models, Weather
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: Generalized Additive Models, air pollution, wildfires, PM2.5, speciation, particulate carbon

Smoke aerosols released from biomass burning greatly influence air quality, weather, and climate. The total particulate matter (TPM) of smoke aerosols has been demonstrated to be a linear function of fire radiative energy (FRE) during a period of biomass burning via a smoke…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Weather
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: Indonesia, emission coefficient, MODIS - Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, FRE - Fire Radiative Energy, smoke aerosols, PM - particulate matter, air quality, MODIS active fires

Smoke from human-induced fires such as prescribed fires can occasionally cause significant reduction in visibility on highways in the southern United States. Visibility reduction to less than three meters has been termed 'superfog' and environmental conditions that lead to its…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Models, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: superfog, visibility, liquid water content, CCN - cloud condensation nuclei

Wildland firefighters are exposed to wood smoke, which contains hazardous air pollutants, by suppressing thousands of wildfires across the U. S. each year. We estimated the relative risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality from existing PM2.5 exposure-response…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fire Prevention, Hazard and Risk, Safety
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: wildland fire, firefighters, PM - particulate matter, risk assessment, cardiovascular disease, lung diseases, firefighter health, smoke exposure

Seasonal-mean concentrations of particulate matter with diameters smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) have been decreasing across the United States (US) for several decades, with large reductions in spring and summer in the eastern US. In contrast, summertime-mean PM2.5 in the western…
Person:
Year: 2019
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, National
Keywords: PM - particulate matter, PM2.5, fire frequency, area burned, smoke plumes, GEOS-Chem, GEOS-Chem CTM

Prescribed fire and wildfire in the Western US have long been critical ecological processes used by humans, specifically Native Americans, to manage the plant species, insects, and diseases present in a landscape. However, policies of fire suppression have led to a decrease in…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Prevention, Fuels, Hazard and Risk, Prescribed Fire, Restoration and Rehabilitation
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, fire suppression, literature review

Biomass burning (BB) is a major source of black carbon (BC), but comparing BC content of different smoke-impacted air masses may be uncertain if different measurement techniques are used to quantify the BC, or if non-BC fractions influence a given measurement. To investigate…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fuels
Region(s): California, Great Basin, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest
Keywords: biomass burning, black carbon, aerosols, emission factors

A series of small-scale laboratory fires were conducted to study the relationship between fuel type, moisture content, energy released and emissions during the combustion process of live wildland fuels. The experimental design sought to understand the effects that varying…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fuels
Region(s): California, Eastern
Keywords: FRE - Fire Radiative Energy, moisture content, remote sensing, pyrophytic, laboratory fires, fuel type, FRP - Fire Radiative Power, PM2.5, PM - particulate matter

The damage caused by forest fire to forestry resources and economy is quite serious. As one of the most important characters of early forest fire, smoke is widely used as a signal of forest fire. In this paper, we propose a novel forest fire smoke detection method based on…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Occurrence, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: smoke detection, smoke root, interactive modeling, fire detection

The extent of the Earth’s surface burned annually by fires is affected by a number of drivers, including but not limited to climate. Other important drivers include the amount and type of vegetation (fuel) available and human impacts, including fire suppression, ignition, and…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Occurrence, Fuels
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, International, National
Keywords: area burned, climate change, fire activity, systems approach, area burned, human impacts

Fires play a critical role in modulating regional and global climate through disturbances on meteorological, biogeochemical, and hydrological processes, while fires are strongly affected by climate, terrestrial ecosystems, and human activities. The complex climate‐fire‐ecosystem…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Climate, Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Models, Weather
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: earth system models, model development, fire-climate interactions