Fire Effects on Air Quality

Prescribed fire is an important part of ecosystem management and is essential in maintaining southern ecosystems, but air pollutants emitted from those fires can be harmful to human health. Because of the public and governmental concerns about the possible risk of wildland fire smoke to public health and safety, as well as nuisance, visibility, ozone generation, and regional haze impacts, increasingly effective smoke management programs and air quality policies are being implemented with support from research and land management agency programs. 

The following sections are excerpted from the widely used publication "Wildland Fire in Ecosystems: Fire Effects on Air" (Sandberg et al. 2002):

• Air Quality Regulations discusses the Clean Air Act and its amendments in the context of how and why fire impacts each issue, what information is needed, and who needs it to fulfill legal requirements under the act.  National ambient air quality standards, regional haze and visibility, hazardous air pollutants, and best available control methods are some of the topics covered.
  
  
• Magnitude of Fire Contributions to Air Quality Impacts outlines the magnitude of the impacts of prescribed fire and wildland fire on air quality.
  
  
• Characterization of Emissions from Fires explains what factors need to be understood in order to characterize fire emissions, including area burned, fuels, fire behavior, emissions factors, source strength, and heat release rates.
  
  
• Transport, Dispersion, and Modeling Fire Emissions explains the different factors that influence smoke transport and dispersion (heat release, plume rise and bouancy, advection and diffusion, scavenging, and chemical transformations) and describes the different smoke models available (plume, puff, particle, and grid).
  
  
• Atmospheric and Plume Chemistry details ozone formation, emissions factors for reactive species, particle formation, and factors affecting plume chemistry.
  
  
• Estimating Air Quality Impacts of Fire discusses emissions inventories and air quality monitoring.
  
  
• Consequences of Fire on Air Quality discusses health and welfare effects, economic and social consequences, highway safety and climate change.
  
  
• Research Gaps recommends priorities for future research to better understand and quantify fire and its effect on air quality.