Overview of the Georgia Wildland-fire Simulation Experiment (GWISE)

Abstract

The readership of ACS ES&T Air is undoubtedly familiar with the profound impacts of wildland-fire smoke on air quality and climate. It may be less familiar with the crucial role that wildland fires play in maintaining the ecological health of many forest types (McLauchlan et al., 2020). Wildland fires are generally categorized into wildfires and prescribed fires. On one hand, wildfires are unplanned wildland fires that occur either naturally or due to accidental or malicious human ignition. On the other hand, prescribed fires are wildland fires that are ignited intentionally to rejuvenate fire-dependent ecosystems in a controlled manner and to prevent larger-scale wildfires by consuming highly ignitable fuels (Kolden, 2019). This important utility of prescribed fires has recently received increased recognition both in the United States and globally (Molina-Terren et al., 2016; Hiers et al., 2020; Peterson et al., 2022; Li et al., 2025). However, the perspectives of U.S. regional wildland-fire specialists indicate that smoke emissions are often a barrier for the implementation of prescribed fires (Peterson et al., 2022).

Citation

Overview of the Georgia Wildland-fire Simulation Experiment (G-WISE)Rawad Saleh and Joseph O’BrienACS ES&T Air. 2025. 2 (6), 979-981DOI: 10.1021/acsestair.5c00122