Smoke exposure is often an inevitable side effect of open vegetation fires (both planned and wild) and is an important public health concern.
Living with fire is a challenge for human communities because they are influenced by socio-economic, political, ecological and climatic processes at various spatial and temporal scales. Over the course of 2 days, the authors discussed how communities could live with fire challenges at local, national and transnational scales.
Studies project that a warming climate will likely increase wildfire activity in many areas (Westerling and others 2002; Flannigan and others 2005, 2009; Littell and others 2009).
Wildfire activity is predicted to increase with global climate change, resulting in longer fire seasons and larger areas burned. The emissions from fires are highly variable owing to differences in fuel, burning conditions and other external environmental factors. The smoke that is generated can impact human populations spread over vast geographical areas.
In this study, WRF-Sfire is coupled with WRF-Chem to construct WRFSC, an integrated forecast system for wildfire behaviour and smoke prediction. WRF-Sfire directly predicts wildfire spread, plume and plume-top heights, providing comprehensive meteorology and fire emissions to chemical transport model WRF-Chem, eliminating the need for an external plume-rise model.
Management of smoke from prescribed fires requires knowledge of fuel quantity and the amount and composition of the smoke produced by the fire to minimize adverse impacts on human health.
The Forum was an opportunity to discuss the importance of wildfire smoke, review the current technology and tools that help inform decision making, discuss the policies and issues related to smoke impacts, and suggest plans for projects and organizations to address smoke issues in the future. Get the presentations and posters at FireSmoke.ca.
On 28 September 2009, the Naches Ranger District on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in south-central Washington State ignited an 800-ha prescribed fire. Later that afternoon, elevated PM2.5 concentrations and visible smoke were reported in Yakima, Washington, about 40 km east of the burn unit. The U.S.
How does this smoke affect people? Do people know where the smoke comes from and does such knowledge affect their attitude towards it? Do concerns about smoke preclude the use of prescribed fire? Gaining insight into public attitudes toward smoke is important in making decisions regarding its management. To investigate these questions, we conducted a mail survey of households in four sites across the US in 2012. Nearly 1000 people responded to the survey.
Wildland fire managers face increasingly steep challenges to meet air quality standards while planning prescribed fire and its inevitable smoke emissions. The goals of sound fire management practices, including fuel load reduction through prescribed burning, are often challenged by the need to minimize smoke impacts on communities.