Modeling Regional-Scale Wildland Fire Emissions with the Wildland Fire Emissions Information System*

Abstract

As carbon modeling tools become more comprehensive, spatial data are needed to improve quantitative maps of carbon emissions from fire. The Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (WFEIS) provides mapped estimates of carbon emissions from historical forest fires in the United States through a web browser. WFEIS improves access to data and provides a consistent approach to estimating emissions at landscape, regional, and continental scales. The system taps into data and tools developed by the U.S. Forest Service to describe fuels, fuel loadings, and fuel consumption and merges information from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration on fire location and timing. Currently, WFEIS provides web access to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) burned area for North America and U.S. fire-perimeter maps from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity products from the USGS, overlays them on 1-km fuel maps for the United States, and calculates fuel consumption and emissions with an open-source version of the Consume model. Mapped fuel moisture is derived from daily meteorological data from remote automated weather stations. In addition to tabular output results, WFEIS produces multiple vector and raster formats. This paper provides an overview of the WFEIS system, including the web-based system functionality and datasets used for emissions estimates. WFEIS operates on the web and is built using open-source software components that work with open international standards such as keyhole markup language (KML). Examples of emissions outputs from WFEIS are presented showing that the system provides results that vary widely across the many ecosystems of North America and are consistent with previous emissions modeling estimates and products.

The influence of daily meteorology on boreal fire emissions and regional trace gas variability

“…Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences , and the Wildland Fire Emissions Information System [French et al, 2014]. Previous aircraft and field campaigns have led to the sampling of 23 fresh boreal fire plumes over the last three decades using continuous flow gas analyzers [Radke et al, 1991;Nance et al, 1993;Cofer et al, 1998;Goode et al, 2000] and flasks [Simpson et al, 2011].…”

A growing importance of large fires in conterminous United States during 1984–2012

“…Burned area can either be obtained from input data sets [e.g., van der Werf et al ., ] or from model simulations [e.g., Li et al ., ]. Input burned area data sets employed in most fire models are from satellite‐based observations [e.g., van der Werf et al ., ; Wiedinmyer et al ., ; Urbanski et al ., ; French et al ., ]. The representation of combustion completeness and tree mortality in fire emission models can either be retrieved from a fixed vegetation parameter table [e.g., Li et al ., ; Thonicke et al ., ] or be simulated according to fuel characteristics and meteorological conditions [e.g., French et al ., ; Urbanski et al ., ; Larkin et al ., ; Veraverbeke et al ., ].…”

Next‐Generation Biomass Mapping for Regional Emissions and Carbon Inventories: Incorporating Uncertainty in Wildland Fuel Characterization

“…Wildland fuel information and maps are used as inputs to numerous models, including consumption and emission models such as the First Order Fire Effects Model (Reinhardt et al, 1997) and Consume (Ottmar, 2014;Prichard et al, 2014), wildland fire behavior prediction tools such as FLAMMAP (Finney, 2006), and smoke-dispersion models and frameworks such as the Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (French et al, 2014) and BlueSky (Larkin et al, 2014). For many modeling studies of biomass, carbon fluxes, and climate, the importance of incorporating uncertainty is the foundation of simulations.…”