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Fire workgroup for 2022 platform

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2022 Emissions Modeling Platform Wiki Main Page

Background

Coordinators: Jeff Vukovich (EPA) and Rhonda Payne (WESTAR)

The Fires workgroup will review the 2022 draft and final fire inventories for correctness and completeness. The draft wild and prescribed fire inventory will be prepared using SMARTFIRE2 and BlueSky Pipeline, using activity data sets including the Hazard Mapping System (HMS), Incident Status Summary (ICS-209) reports, and the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) shapefiles (formerly GeoMAC). State and local data will also be incorporated where available. For 2022 agricultural fires, a day-specific FF10 point dataset is available and was developed using the same method as the point agricultural fire data in the 2020 NEI.

Jeff sent out an optional data request for those who want to provide data in October. All fire activity data due by December 8, 2023. EPA received activity data from NJ, OR, TX, NM, DE, IA, ID, AZ, LA, ME, CT, SC, AR, CO, MD, PA, MN, MO, MT, ND, NV, UT, & WY. The Nez Perce and Coeur D'Alene tribes also submitted activity data. These data will be used in the 2022v1 base year inventory, available for review during the April 2024 review period.

EPA did create a first draft of the fire inventory , shared with the group on November 22, 2023. CA, GA, FL, NC, WA, and the Flint Hills (KS/OK) supplied activity data used in this first draft.

  • OF NOTE
    • The wildland emissions are separated into fireloc files for each state as we normally do for NEI efforts.
    • A few summaries are also available, and the agricultural burn estimates are in a separate sub-folder (ag_burns).
    • Pile burn emissions are not included in this first draft. This tech memo provides more details on how EPA intends to calculate emissions from pile burns.

Meetings

2022v1 Draft Inventory Meeting - April 29, 2024

Presentation

Agenda

Draft Fire Data on EPA's FTP Site

Notes

Jeff went over the presentation slides (see link above to download slides). The main topics covered included:

  • Misson of the WG
  • Beta version of the fires inventory
    • Key changes since alpha version
    • Activity and Tools used
    • Fire activity submitted by SLTs
    • Acres burned and emissions summaries
  • Crop residue burns
  • Pileburn emissions (James Beidler presentation)
  • Next steps and updated timeline to support 2022 EMP

It was noted that there was a mistake in the presentation (slide 14). The corrected slide is available for default acres when only a satellite detection is available to estimate the area burned. The colors on the slide were also changed to determine land cover better, and corrected land cover descriptions were provided. The shapefile for the above default acres graphic is available.

A couple of key points from the presentation include:

  • Right now, there are only brief technical documents to describe the process - the final TSD will eventually document everything
  • Alpha fires were done in Dec. 2023
  • Beta fires were done on April 12, 2024
  • Final version 1 fires by mid-June
  • There will be no future year inventory for fires
  • Following the completion of v1 fires in June, EPA will work on technical documentation for this sector
  • The deadline for feedback on beta version of fires is May 17th
  • 2022 v2 will fix everything from 2022 v1
  • EPA is working to estimate Canadian wildfire - this estimate will be available in May 2024.

Kickoff Meeting - December 12, 2023

Recording

Agenda

  • Welcome and Roll Call
  • Mission
    • Base year is the main goal
    • Wildfires, prescribed burns (with pile burns) and ag burns
    • No plans for analytic year scenarios for fires at EPA
  • Draft version
    • Activity data used
    • Tools used
    • Summary of emissions
  • Pile burns
    • Initial version coming soon
    • States that want to be involved?
  • Activity data request: deadline is Dec 8th
  • Next steps and updated timeline
  • When do we meet again?

Notes

  • Jeff V. went over slides describing:
    • the mission of the workgroup, which is focused on creating a 2022 CAP and HAP inventory of fires and associated technical documentation. The focus is on the base year emissions, although there are research opportunities to develop analytic years.
    • Activity data and tools used to create the draft inventory - Python modified-SMARTFIRE2 for generating daily acres burned and Bluesky Pipeline for generating daily emissions.
      • Inputs to Python modified-SMARTFIRE2 include HMS, ICS-209, NIFS, FACTS, DOI, and state activity reports.
    • Important changes since 2020 NEI include:
      • moving away from using FEPSv2 emission factors to SERA emission factors in Bluesky Pipeline
      • Specifically estimating emissions for pile burns
      • Using the crop burn module in Bluesky Pipeline
    • Activity and emissions summaries in the draft inventory for wildfire, prescribed fire, and agricultural burning.

  • Jeff presented on next steps:
    • Further refinement of wildfires and continued comparison vs NIFC
    • Possible SERA NOx emission factor updates
    • Provide pile burn estimates for review
    • Incorporate new activity received from SLTs in Python SMARTFIRE2 and rerun Bluesky Pipeline with new activity

  • Questions, action items, and next steps in the timeline
    • Updated timeline from 2022v1
      • Initial pile burn estimates (available by 1/5/24), review and feedback due by 2/2/24
      • New version of emissions using all submitted activity (including pile burns) by 3/1/24
      • REVIEW PERIOD for v1: 3/1/4 - 4/30/24 (if resources to QA data are tight, suggest focusing on this period rather than reviewing the draft version that is out currently).
      • EPA will incorporate feedback 5/24 - 6/24, before v1 is finalized in summer 2024.