Strategies to reduce wildfire smoke in frequently impacted communities in south-western Oregon
Richard L. Graw A * and Bret A. Anderson B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, 1220 Southwest 3rd Avenue, Portland, OR, 97204, USA.
B US DOI Bureau of Land Management, 2850 Youngfield Street, Lakewood, CO 80215, USA.
* Correspondence to: richard.graw@usda.gov
International Journal of Wildland Fire 31(12) 1155-1166 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22071
Submitted: 11 May 2022 Accepted: 21 October 2022 Published: 16 November 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC)
Abstract
Background: Efforts to mitigate the adverse effects of wildfire smoke have focused on modifying human behaviour to minimise individual exposure, largely accomplished by providing smoke forecasts, monitoring, and consistent public messaging.
Aims: To identify a strategy to reduce the amount of wildfire smoke in frequently impacted communities.
Methods: We identify frequent air pathways that transport smoke into five communities in south-western Oregon. We present a case study comparing the potential change in the 24-h average PM2.5 concentration between fuels burned during a wildfire which are and are not treated prior to the incident.
Key results: The concentration of PM2.5 would have decreased by 41% if fuel treatments occurred just prior to the wildfire. Of six vegetative strata, canopy, wood, and ground fuels contributed 88% of the total PM2.5 emissions, with shrub, herb, and lichen/litter/moss strata comprising the remaining 12%.
Conclusions: Fuel treatments can substantially reduce smoke emission from subsequent wildfires and if located in consideration of meteorological patterns, these fuel treatments can reduce ambient concentrations of PM2.5.
Implications: Fire and land managers can use the frequent air pathways and focus fuel treatments on the fuel beds and vegetative strata with the greatest potential to emit smoke during wildfires, to reduce the duration and concentration of wildfire smoke in frequently impacted communities.
Keywords: air pathways, air quality, back-trajectories, communities, fuel treatments, PM2.5, smoke, source apportionment, vegetative strata.
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