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The impact of wildland fire smoke on air quality and health is an issue growing in importance to many health officials across the country, as well as federal, state and local decision-makers. This webinar gives an overview of EPA’s tools and resources available to provide public…
Person: Long
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Mapping, Models, Safety
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: air quality, PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, public health, wildland fire, wildfire, EPA - Environmental Protection Agency, mitigation, air pollution, health risk

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

This seminar is part of the USFS Missoula Fire Lab Seminar Series. The National Weather Service (NWS) Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) has been developed to provide a national standard Analysis of Record (AoR) for large scale verification and bias-correction efforts. The RTMA…
Person: Leach
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models, Safety, Weather
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: RTMA - Real Time Mesoscale Analysis, URMA - Un-Restricted Mesoscale Analysis, AoR - Analysis of Record, atmospheric moisture, ARA - Air Resource Advisor, air quality, ADI - Atmospheric Dispersion Index, LVORI - Low Visibility Occurrence Risk Index, visibility, health impacts

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

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 Advanced Fire Environment Learning Unit (AFELU) will host three speakers to talk about Predictive Services comparison tools (Robert Ziel, Alaska Fire Science Consortium), predicting fire behavior in Alaska (Chris Moore, Alaska Fire Service), and smoke tools (Pete Lahm, US…
Person: Ziel, Moore, Lahm
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Hazard and Risk, Mapping, Models, Safety, Weather
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: drought, landscape flammability, precipitation, NDVI - Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, PDI - Palmer Drought Index, FSPro - Fire Spread Probability, 2019 fire season, acres burned, ERC - Energy Release Component, wildfires, air quality, PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, BlueSky

The Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) has supported the development of a new resource for defining fuel loading across the variable landscapes of the US. The work entailed compiling existing data on fuel loadings categorized by Existing Vegetation Type (EVT). The data has been…
Person: French, Prichard, Kennedy, Billmire
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Behavior, Fuels, Models
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: fuel loading, EVT - existing vegetation type, fuels database, fire operations research, smoke modeling

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

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

In this study, the Flexible Particle (FLEXPART)-WRF, a Lagrangian particle dispersion model, is employed to simulate pollutant dispersion in and near the LehighGap, a gap in a prominent ridgeline in eastern Pennsylvania. FLEXPART-WRF is used to evaluate the diagnostic value of…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models
Region(s): Eastern
Keywords: FLEXPART, ventilation index, HRT - horizontal residence time, atmosphere, complex terrain, dispersion, mesoscale model, aerosols, particulates, wildfires

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

The impact of a forest canopy on smoke concentration is assessed by applying a numerical weather prediction model coupled with a Lagrangian particle dispersion model to two low-intensity wildland (prescribed) fires in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. A comparison with observations…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Models, Weather
Region(s): Eastern
Keywords: New Jersey Pine Barrens, smoke dispersion, numerical simulation, wildland fire, forest canopy

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

Wildland firefighters are exposed to wood smoke, which contains hazardous air pollutants, during wildland fire management assignments across the U.S. each year. In this webinar, Kathleen Navarro, PhD, will present on a recent Joint Fire Science Program study estimating the…
Person: Navarro, Martinez
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Fire Prevention, Hazard and Risk
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: human health, health impacts, PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, PAH - polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, firefighters, firefighter exposure

Presented by Inga La Puma on Wednesday, January 30th, 2019 at the Northeastern Forest Fire Protection Compact Winter Awareness Meeting.
Person: La Puma
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Regulations and Legislation, Safety
Region(s): Eastern
Keywords: smoke effects, health effects, PM2.5, PM - particulate matter, CO - carbon monoxide, O3 - ozone, smoke management plans, smoke dispersion

Background: An important consequence of wildland fire is the production of ash, defined as a continuum of mineral to charred organic residues formed by the burning of wildland fuels. Ash may impact soil health depending on its elemental composition and other factors, which are…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fuels, Prescribed Fire, Restoration and Rehabilitation
Region(s): Eastern
Keywords: Wisconsin, pine barrens, brush cutting, disturbance, forest management, Moquah Barrens, pyrometer, ash

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 impact of smoke on human health is a factor that is taken into account when forest managers are planning prescribed burns. David Weise, a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, explains how research seeks to improve the ability for…
Person:
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Topic(s): Emissions and Smoke, Fire Effects, Planning, Prescribed Fire, Weather
Region(s): Alaska, California, Eastern, Great Basin, Hawaii, Northern Rockies, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwest, National
Keywords: human health, Clean Air Act, air quality