Wildland fires and air pollution. Developments in Environmental Science 8

Abstract

The interaction between smoke and air pollution creates a public health challenge. Fuels treatments proposed for National Forests are intended to reduce fuel accumulations and wildfire frequency and severity, as well as to protect property located in the wild land-urban interface. However, prescribed fires produce gases and aerosols that have instantaneous and long-term effects on air quality. If fuels treatment are not conducted, however, then wild land fires become more severe and frequent causing worse public health and wellfare effects. A better understanding of air pollution and smoke interactions is needed in order to protect the public health and allow for socially and ecologically acceptable use of fire as a management tool. This text offers such an understanding and examines innovative wide-scale monitoring efforts (field and remotely sensed), and development of models predicting spatial and temporal distribution of air pollution and smoke resulting from forests fires and other sources.

Titles contained within Wildland fires and air pollution. Developments in Environmental Science 8

• Impacts of vegetation fire emissions on the environment, human health, and security: a global perspective
• Climatic and weather factors affecting fire occurrence and behavior
• Characterizing sources of emissions from wildland fires
• Chemical composition of wildland fire emissions
• Effects of wildland fire on regional and global carbon stocks in a changing environment
• Airborne remote sensing of wildland fires
• Effects of forest fires on visibility and air quality
• Assessment of forest fire impacts and emissions in the European Union based on the European forest fire information system
• Forest fires and air quality issues in southern Europe
• Spatial and temporal trends in distribution of forest fires in Central and Eastern Europe
• A Mega-fire event in Central Russia: fire weather, radiative, and optical properties of the atmosphere, and consequences for subboreal forest plants
• Vegetation fires, smoke emissions, and dispersion of radionuclides in the chernobyl exclusion zone
• Remote sensing applications of wildland fire and air quality in China
• Smoke from wildfires and prescribed burning in Australia: effects on human health and ecosystems
• Global warming and stress complexes in forests of western North America
• A probabilistic view of chaparral and forest fire regimes in southern California and northern Baja California
• Air pollution increases forest susceptibility to wildfires: A case study in the San Bernardino Mountains in southern California
• Fire effects on carbon and nitrogen cycling in forests of the Sierra Nevada
• Management options for mitigating Nitrogen (N) losses from N-saturated mixed-conifer forests in California
• Interactive effects of climate and wildland fires on forests and other ecosystems—section III synthesis
• Fire danger and fire behavior modeling systems in Australia, Europe, and North America
• Regional real-time smoke prediction systems
• Managing smoke from wildfires and prescribed burning in southern Australia
• A statistical model for forecasting hourly ozone levels during fire season
• Managing air pollution impacted forests of California
• Integrating research on wildland fires and air quality: needs and recommendations

Citation

Bytnerowicz, Andrzej; Arbaugh, Michael; Andersen, Christian; Riebau, Allen (Ed.). 2009. Wildland Fires and Air Pollution. Developments in Environmental Science 8. The Netherlands: Elsevier: 686 p