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Wildland fires present a threat to both the environment and to homes and businesses in the wildland urban interface. Understanding the behavior of wildland fires is crucial for developing informed risk management techniques, such as prescribed burning, to prevent uncontrolled…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fuels, Hazard and Risk, Planning, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): Southern
Keywords: loblolly pine, Pinus taeda, fuel loading, pine straw, risk reduction, wind effects, fuel moisture content, experimental fire

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 is the first panel discussion in Season 2 of the Fueling Collaboration series. Moderator Nick Skowronski (USDA Forest Service) discusses fire and the carbon cycle with panelists Ken Clark (USDA Forest Service), Jessica Miesel (Michigan State University), Louise Loudermilk (…
Person: Skowronski, Clark, Miesel, Loudermilk, Midgley, Coates
Year: 2021
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Ecology, Fire Effects, Fuels, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): Eastern, Southern
Keywords: C - carbon, carbon cycle, CO2 - carbon dioxide, carbon sequestration, carbon pool, fuels treatment, soil carbon

Oklahoma Forestry Services (OFS), a division of the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry (ODAFF), is the state regulatory agency responsible for the oversight of forest and rangeland fire management programs. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), is…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke
Region(s): Southern
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

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

Prescribed burning (PB) is a prominent source of PM2.5 in the southeastern US and exposure to PB smoke is a health risk. As demand for burning increases and stricter controls are implemented for other anthropogenic sources, PB emissions tend to be responsible for an increasing…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Monitoring and Inventory, Prescribed Fire, Safety
Region(s): Southern
Keywords: PM - particulate matter, PM2.5, air quality, Southwestern Georgia, sensors, CMAQ - Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System, human health

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

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

Ecosystem process models can be used to predict forest response to disturbances at a range of scales. Selection of the spatial class of model should depend on the scale of the research or management question, and model type should depend on the ecosystem attributes of interest.…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Ecology, Fire Effects, Mapping, Models, Monitoring and Inventory, Prescribed Fire
Region(s): Southern
Keywords: C - carbon, carbon sequestration, Ecosystem Demography model, ecosystem modeling, Ichauway, Jones Center, LANDIS-II, longleaf pine, Pinus palustris, wildfire

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

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 fire activity and associated emission of particulate matter air pollution is increasing in the United States over the last two decades due primarily to a combination of increased temperature, drought, and historically high forest fuel loading. The regulatory monitoring…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Monitoring and Inventory
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: PM2.5, wildland fire, PM - particulate matter, small form factor sampler, air quality

Background: One of the scientific challenges of understanding climate change has been determining the important drivers and metrics of global carbon (C) emissions and C cycling in tropical, subtropical, boreal, subarctic, and temperate peatlands. Peatlands account for 3% of…
Person:
Year: 2021
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects
Region(s): Southern
Keywords: carbon emissions, dNBR - differenced (or delta) Normalized Burn Ratio, ground fires, LiDAR - Light Detection and Ranging, peatland, temperate, wildfires, Pains Bay Fire, North Carolina, carbon cycling

As anthropogenic emissions continue to decline and emissions from landscape (wild, prescribed, and agricultural) fires increase across the coming century, the relative importance of landscape-fire smoke on air quality and health in the United States (US) will increase. Landscape…
Person:
Year: 2021
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: PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, air quality, air pollution, wildfire, health impact assessment, human health, hazardous air pollutants, asthma, hospital admissions

The impacts of wildfires on the health of children are becoming a more urgent matter as wildfires become more frequent, intense and affecting, not only forested areas, but also urban locations. It is important that medical professionals be prepared to provide information to…
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, National
Keywords: children, health impacts, public health