Science for wildfire and safety: During fire
Managing Smoke
Smoke is an inevitable part of all fires, both prescribed and wild. And with smoke comes pollutants that threaten public health. Research and Development scientists work with smoke experts across the country to improve smoke modeling, forecasting, and monitoring.
Agency scientists are developing a tool to predict how prescribed fire ignition patterns affect downwind smoke concentrations with estimates of fuel consumption, emissions, and heat release. This tool will help managers weigh the tradeoffs between the smoke produced from prescribed fires and the smoke likely produced by future wildfires.
Firefighters on the Hughes Fire in California.
The Airnow Fire and Smoke Map puts air quality and smoke information at the fingertips of users. Developed by Research and Development’s AirFire Research Team and the Environmental Protection Agency, the app updates air quality information in real time so people can make informed choices about outdoor activities.
The AirFire Research Team gives managers tools for modeling how prescribed fire smoke may affect communities or driver visibility as well as real-time information about wildfire smoke. These smoke outlooks are posted on the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map. And with the Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program, the team helps train air resource advisors on incident management teams.
The BlueSky Modeling Framework simulates smoke emissions from wildfires and models smoke impacts. Along with other sources, BlueSky provides the data for National Weather Service smoke forecasts so that communities know what to expect in coming days.
Smoke may be inevitable, but its debilitating effects may not be. Agency scientists are developing a framework to help differentiate the quality and quantity of smoke from prescribed fires and wildfires. In other words, could some smoke now from prescribed fires help prevent lots of smoke later from wildfires?
An updated emission factors database details the pollutants emitted by fires in different forest types and smoldering duff. Database findings suggest that prescribed fire particulate emissions can be 90 percent lower than those from a high-intensity wildfire.
An open access book synthesizes the multifaceted issues of smoke from wildland fires across the Nation. It covers fuels, fire behavior, heat release, smoke plume dynamics, emissions, smoke chemistry, and fire models that put decision-making tools in the hands of managers.
Analyses of regional and geographical factors in the Southeast affecting wildfire and smoke found that the region’s forests are becoming more prone to hazardous fire. However, sustained fuel management could offset increases in risk.
Predicting Fire Behavior
The Behave Fire Modeling System, one of the most used fire modeling systems in the world, continues to be upgraded and improved by agency scientists and partners. Recently, scientists better aligned it with tools that model tree mortality and fuel consumption.
Yellow Lake Fire on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.
The Wildland Fire Decision Support System, one of the most widely used applications in fire management, is continuously updated by agency scientists and partners. Recent improvements include near-real-time data and integrated spatial datasets like the Snag Hazard Map, Suppression Difficulty Index, Potential Control Locations, and Incident Strategic Alignment Process workflows.
Researchers are developing ways to remotely detect and monitor wildfires using the sounds they make. These new acoustic monitors may yield data about fire growth and change that complements existing data.
Airborne embers are the leading reason that wildfires ignite structures in the wildland-urban interface—yet they are not well represented in predictive tools and models. Agency research is filling this gap and giving fire managers new data about how these flaming particles cause fires to spread.
Agency researchers not only study how fires move through forests and grasslands—but also how they move through cities. Research on fire behavior in and smoke dispersion from mass timber structures helps ensure safe use of the building material as well as safety of first responders and communities. Additionally, the research may one day influence building fire test standards.
The Fire Behavior Assessment Team measures conditions before, during, and after fires to test the assumptions underlaying fire behavior models. These measurements improve the tools managers use to respond to fire and support firefighter safety.
The nationwide, multi-agency Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment advances fire science and modeling with monitored and scrutinized prescribed burns that mimic high intensity wildfires.
Research and Development scientists and others are working with land managers in the experiment to improve firefighting strategies and enhance smoke forecasts.
Planning for Fire Attack
Cedar Fire aerial retardant and water operations on Black Mountain in the Sequoia National Forest, near Alta Sierra, CA.
Aircraft immensely help fire crews manage wildfires, but their use comes with a cost. Forest Service aviation represents one-third of annual firefighting costs on average. To help managers make the best use of aviation resources, agency scientists developed the Aviation Use Summary decision support framework. It bridges the gap between tactical aviators, incident managers, land managers, and fire leaders with maps of actions and a check-in and planning process.
Over the last decade, fire suppression has cost Federal land management agencies an average of more than $3 billion per year—a number projected to rise by $1 billion by mid-century, report agency scientists. These numbers, alongside other numbers from agency scientists in a recent Climate Financial Risk Report from the White House Office of Management and Budget, help ensure the best use of fire spending.
Knowing where fire personnel and equipment are coming from and going— both by geography and by agency—may help fire managers project how to fill future resource needs. Agency scientists are developing models to do just that, helping ensure that fire management resources are ready and available.
