Technical Topics & Research Highlights

The research highlighted on the Emissions and Smoke Portal predominantly focuses on topics in the context of wildland fire management.

Looking for additional recent research and information on wildland fire smoke? Browse the FRAMES Catalog linked here to see filtered results specific to wildland fire smoke. 

The Smoke Emissions Repository Application (SERA) database is a compilation of field and laboratory emission factors of wildland fire across the United States and Canada. The SERA database facilitates the analysis and summary of existing emission factors for emissions inventories and smoke management. Users can easily query the database and filter by combustion phase, burn type, vegetation type, and more.

Access SERA at https://depts.washington.edu/nwfire/sera/

Read more about SERA in Prichard et al. 2020

The NWCG Smoke Committee has published a technical guide to addressing prescried fire smoke. the NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire contains information on prescribed fire smoke management techniques, air quality regulations, smoke monitoring, modeling, communication, public perception of prescribed fire and smoke, climate change, practical meteorological approaches and smoke tools. The primary focus of this document is to serve as the textbook in support of NWCG’s RX410, Smoke Management Techniques course which is required for the position of Prescribed Fire Burn Boss Type 2 (RXB2) The Guide is useful to all who use prescribed fire, from private land owners to federal land managers, with practical tools, and underlying science. Many chapters are helpful for addressing air quality impacts from wildfires. It is intended to assist those who are following the guidance of the NWCG’s Interagency Prescribed Fire Planning and Implementation Procedures Guide, PMS 484, in planning for, and addressing, smoke when conducting prescribed fires.

NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team (HAQAST)

The HAQAST Team uses NASA satellite data to help solve real-world public health and air quality problems. The Team is diverse: working around the world on issues from wildfire smoke to diesel emissions. They collaborate with public stakeholders, who help guide their research. They also pursue short-term, high-impact projects in small groups called Tiger Teams.

• See the latest HAQAST webinar series on their 2020 webinars mainpage.
• In March a new webinar was added from Dr. Susan O'Neill: Where there's Smoke: Satellite Data for Smoke and Fire.
• Watch a series of training videos from the Northern California HAQAST Tiger Team on using satellite data for smoke and fire: https://sites.google.com/firenet.gov/wfaqrp-airfire/projects/haqast/2017NorthernCAWildfiresTT/training