Simulation of Air Quality Impacts from Prescribed Fires on an Urban Area

Abstract

On February 28, 2007, a severe smoke event caused by prescribed forest fires occurred in Atlanta, GA. Later smoke events in the southeastern metropolitan areas of the United States caused by the Georgia-Florida wild forest fires further magnified the significance of forest fire emissions and the benefits of being able to accurately predict such occurrences. By using preburning information, we utilize an operational forecasting system to simulate the potential air quality impacts from two large February 28th fires. Our "forecast" predicts that the scheduled prescribed fires would have resulted in over 1 million Atlanta residents being potentially exposed to fine particle matter (PM2.5) levels of 35 microg m(-3) or higher from 4 p.m. to midnight. The simulated peak 1 h PM2.5 concentration is about 121 microg m(-3). Our study suggests that the current air quality forecasting technology can be a useful tool for helping the management of fire activities to protect public health. With postburning information, our "hindcast" predictions improved significantly on timing and location and slightly on peak values. "Hindcast" simulations also indicated that additional isoprenoid emissions from pine species temporarily triggered by the fire could induce rapid ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation during late winter. Results from this study suggest that fire induced biogenic volatile organic compounds emissions missing from current fire emissions estimate should be included in the future.

Ubiquitous influence of wildfire emissions and secondary organic aerosol on summertime atmospheric aerosol in the forested Great Lakes region

“…Wildfire plume ozone production can lead to areas far from the original source to be out of compliance with regulatory standards, demonstrating the importance to be able to accurately model ozone production (Hu et al, 2008;Jaffe and Wigder, 2012;Lu et al, 2016). Also, as described here, particles aged through transport show internal mixtures of nitrate, sulfate, and oxidized organics, which can lead to increased CCN activity .…”

Observations and impacts of transported Canadian wildfire smoke on ozone and aerosol air quality in the Maryland region on June 9–12, 2015

“…Previous literature has shown that biomass burning can influence downwind O 3 precursor concentrations and therefore O 3 production via increased VOCs, nitrogen compounds and/or CO (Andreae and Merlet, 2001;McKeen et al, 2002;DeBell et al, 2004;Hu et al, 2008;Monks et al, 2009). In the June 9-12, 2015 event, however, a lag existed between enhanced PM 2.5 and O 3 concentrations along the smoke plume trek (Figure 3).…”

“…This is lower than the 0.525-1.025 ppm CO enhancements observed during the Quebec fires of 2002 (DeBell et al, 2004), but by comparison those measurements only traveled approximately 1-2 days and 1000 km from the smoke source and were in a noncontemporary (greater) regional emissions environment. Hu et al (2008) emphasized the importance of VOC concentrations from biomass smoke on O 3 production in a winter O 3 event, showing that O 3 production was more dependent on VOCs than on NOx, the two primary precursors to ozone. In the June 2015 case there was evidence of VOCs tracking with the smoke plume.…”

“…This was due primarily to regulatory measures such as the NOx State Implementation Plan (SIP) Call of 2002 (Aburn et al, 2015) that lead to regional reductions of anthropogenic NOx (nitrogen oxides), an ozone precursor (Gégo, et al, 2007), and a decline of the annual average number of exceedance days from 52 during [2000][2001][2002] Wildfires are known sources of both primary and secondary pollutants, including carbon monoxide (CO), fine particles (PM 2.5 ), NOx, volatile organic compounds (VOCs; Hu et al, 2008), and O 3 (Andreae and Merlet, 2001;McKeen et al, 2002;Bytnerowicz, et al, 2010). Similar to the study presented here, Canadian wildfires have increased O 3 concentrations in Houston, TX (Morris et al, 2006), and as far away as Europe (Spichtinger et al, 2001).…”

“…Singh et al (2012) outlined some of the current shortcomings in the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model associated with wildfire smoke. Others have noted the uncertainties in the influence of wildfire emissions on O 3 production (e.g., Hu et al, 2008). Characterizing and accurately modeling wildfire constituents in the MA is important for future air quality forecasts and modeling, particularly for regulatory and compliance issues related to NAAQS exceedances associated with wildfire O 3 production in the United States (Jaffe and Wigder, 2012).…”