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Fire Workgroup

Contents [hide]

Collaborative Wiki Main Page

Inventory Collaborative Google Drive Link

Members

Co-leads: Jeff Vukovich (USEPA), Tom Moore (WRAP)

Coordination Committee Meetings

August 2, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Jeff Vukovich (USEPA), Tom Moore (WRAP)

Agenda

  • Roll call
  • Briefly review Action Items from last call
    • Please review Tom Moore's outline of the prescribed burn problem statement (ALL)
    • States/tribes/others need to submit inventory/activity changes for beta version by Aug 17th (ALL)
    • Additional feedback with regard to moving all grassland fires to the SmartFire2/Bluesky pathway (ALL)
    • Continue efforts to meet with USFS AIRFIRE team about updates to software (EPA, others)
  • Tentative:NEI: Fires:emissions Speciationfactor and speciation update (EPA, ORD, Amara Holder)
  • US Forest Service QA (Trent Wickman)
  • Upcoming schedule
    • Aug 17: Inventory/activity changes due
    • Sep 06: Next workgroup conference call scheduled for Thursday September 6, 2018 at 1PM ET, 11AM MT
    • Sep 21: Draft beta version available for QA
    • Oct 04: Another workgroup call; early draft beta QA findings?
    • October: more QA possible
    • Nov 01: Another workgroup call and release beta version

Minutes/Notes

July 12, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Jeff Vukovich (USEPA), Tom Moore (WRAP)

Agenda

  • Roll call
  • Briefly review Action Items from last call
  • Major Grassland fires in OK and KS update
  • States submitting specific data for beta version
    • Kansas: recommended changes to prescribed and agricultural fires; EPA designing approach to use this
    • Georgia: total replacement of all fire type inventories (in progress)
    • Others that plan to submit??
    • Ag burns for 2014NEI consists of annual-county emissions; do some states want to use this inventory for ag burns?
    • Need your data by Friday Aug 17th for implementation into beta version
    • Punchlist of improvements for beta version can be found here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xkVMmlNyqEmMjRtHOMW9_e_WTRAONeQ4Ceif4zmB7CA
  • Follow-up with USFS and AIRFIRE team to get more information on the accessibility of the new Blue Sky modules
    • some progress but doubtful in time for beta version; maybe for 2016 version 1

Minutes/Notes

  • Roll call and review of last call's minutes/action items
  • Tom Moore presented his outline of the prescribed burning database problem statement
  • Jeff Vukovich presented results from a SmartFire2 sensitivity that moved a subset of grassland fires from EPA Pouliot ag/grass method pathway to SF2 pathway
    • Double-counting was eliminated
    • Improved temporal allocation of acres burned for these 2 major wild grassland fires were seen
    • Recommendation was to move all grassland fires from EPA Pouliot method pathway to the SF2/BlueSky pathway
      • States can make different recommendation for their own state if desired
    • Group mentioned it would be good to track these grassland detects and possible assign a different SCC to these fires
  • States are progressing with inventory changes for the beta version
    • GA, KS are submitting changes
    • WA and ID will be submitting changes; Nez Perce tribe changes likely coming too
    • USFS (Trent Wickman) will be providing QA feedback soon
    • Need your data by Friday Aug 17th for implementation into beta version
  • Punchlist of improvements for beta version can be found here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xkVMmlNyqEmMjRtHOMW9_e_WTRAONeQ4Ceif4zmB7CA
  • Continued efforts are being made to follow-up with USFS and AIRFIRE team to get more information on the accessibility of the new Blue Sky modules
    • some progress but doubtful in time for beta version; maybe for 2016 version 1
  • Next workgroup conference call scheduled for Thursday Aug 2, 2018 at 1PM ET, 11AM MT

Action Items

  • Please review Tom Moore's outline of the prescribed burn problem statement (ALL)
  • States/tribes/others need to submit inventory/activity changes for beta version by Aug 17th (ALL)
  • Additional feedback with regard to moving all grassland fires to the SmartFire2/Bluesky pathway (ALL)
  • Continue efforts to meet with USFS AIRFIRE team about updates to software (EPA, others)

June 7, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Jeff Vukovich (USEPA), Tom Moore (WRAP)

Agenda

Minutes/Notes

  • Next call will be July 12 at 1PM ET (it would usually be 7/5 but moved due to holiday)
  • CARB and WRAP QA presentations shown and discussed
    • Further QA of Soberanes acres burned needed
    • Named event totals can be impacted by SmartFire2 settings; don't get too caught up in differences but good to QA this for major fires
  • Generic form for submitting data for 2016 inventory updates (2016 beta and 2016v1) was shown and briefly discussed
  • Workgroup members encouraged to edit/add to punchlist document for 2016 beta
  • More discussion regarding getting USFS AIRFIRE team more involved and knowing more about the possible release of new BlueSky modules
    • Farren indicated that he would contact Susan O'Neil about this
    • Trent Wickman requested the SF2/BSky output data so he could do some QA
    • Other possible federal databases used in NEI year inventories were discussed
    • Performing retro analysis for a historic year with new modules is very much needed; is AIRFIRE doing this or only in forecasts mode?
  • Problem statement idea for prescribed burning database suggested by Tom Moore
    • Problem centers around getting a good consistent prescribed burning database organized
      • Challenges include cloud cover impacting satellite detection methods, pile burns, permiting, not knowing exact day prescribe fire actually occurred (or if it occurred at all?), etc.
      • Tom Moore with draft an outline of problem statement

Action Items

  • Further QA the Soberanes fire in CA for acres burned vs. observed/CARB totals (Vukovich)
  • States/local/tribes/MJOs have form to submit specific changes/data for their region for implementation in beta (and/or v1) of 2016 inventory (ALL)
  • All workgroup members encouraged to add/edit punchlist/wishlist document for 2016 inventory changes for beta version (ALL)
  • Follow-up with USFS and AIRFIRE team to get more information on the accessibility of the new Blue Sky modules (Herron-Thorpe, Vukovich, Rao)
  • Provide SF2/Bsky output data to Trent Wickman and rest of workgroup (Vukovich)
  • Draft an outline for prescribed burning database problem statement (Moore)

May 9, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Jeff Vukovich (USEPA), Tom Moore (WRAP)

Agenda

  • Next call: Thursday June 7th at 1PM ET

Minutes/Notes

  • States should review ag/grassland fire reports if possible
  • Must include HAPS emissions for beta and version 1
  • Workgroup charge document finalized
  • Temporal and speciation profiles currently being used in modeling platform for fires were reviewed
  • Speciation profiles presentation given by Tesh Rao (EPA): see Agenda ppt
  • Klaus Scott provided QA ppt for CA fires
    • Acres burned off by a factor of two or more in most cases
    • Investigation needed into this

Action Items

  • If possible, states should review ag/grassland fire reports provided (ALL)
  • If states have feedback on temporal and speciation profiles, please provide this ASAP (ALL)
  • Post form to submit changes to fire inventory for beta version (Vukovich,Rao)
  • Examine why differences in acres burned based on CARB presentation (Vukovich)
  • Make current punchlist/wish-list for beta version document available to group (Vukovich)

April 5, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Jeff Vukovich (USEPA), Tom Moore (WRAP)

Agenda

  • State review/feedback/plans thus far (brief summary)

  • Next call: Thursday May 3rd at 1PM ET

Minutes/Notes

  • Roll call completed
  • Briefly went over Action Items from minutes from March call
  • Vukovich went over Fire Classification overview for Ag, Grassland and Rx fires (see presentation in Agenda)
    • CARB mentioned that finding the ICS-209 reports on the FAMWEB site can be challenging
      • Presentation has link to ICS-209 reports for others to download
    • Concerns about lack of Federal land fire info were mentioned
  • State feedback discussion
    • Washington state
      • Has reviewed Grassland/Pasture fires and have concern with CDL database in some cases
      • Will be moving some Rx fires to Ag burn category for 2016
      • Suggested the use of a national and state park lands shapefile for further QA of ag/grassland detects and perhaps it has other uses
      • In 2014 analysis, Ag burns were underestimated in NEI2014 by factor of 3; did submit some burn data to nonpoint sector for NEI2014
    • Idaho mentioned that they will likely be submitting ag burn data for 2016
      • data will be day-specific with latitude-longitude information
      • Vukovich mentioned some of the possible drawbacks of submitting county data on annual temporal resolution
      • If states can submit data on monthly temporal resolution that would be good too, but day-specific and lat-lon info the best case
    • Georgia
      • Will be submitting their own fire inventory for year 2016
      • Includes wildfire and prescribed fire emissions (smoldering and flaming separated), acres burned and heat flux info and ag detect info
      • Will compare their 2016 inventory vs. 2016 alpha
      • Georgia willing to share NEI2014 document on their inventory generation process; will post to Google Drive
      • Asked whether HAPs emissions needed
          • Tom Moore mentioned that overall 2016 Collaborative WG leaders have indicated that HAPs is desired for beta version
    • North Carolina
      • Rx acres burned much higher in 2016 alpha inventory vs. NC fire databases; see presentation
      • Showed Fort Bragg case study and plan to submit better activity data for year 2016
  • USFS (Wickman) mentioned that Federal lands fire database helps with improving fire inventories
    • Workgroup will include working on getting access to these database(s) as part of discussions with AIRFIRE team
    • NCDAQ mentioned they tried to access this Federal database unsuccessfully
  • Daily and Event-based emissions reports now available; see agenda for links or goto QA folder on Google Drive
    • If more QA reports needed, please let co-leads know
  • Punchlist or wish list of desired updates for beta version discussed
    • a Google doc will be started with all in the group encourage to add to the list now and in the future
  • Temporal and Speciation profile presentation moved to next month
  • Charge document closure needed
    • Send all comments on the charge document to co-leads by Friday April 13
  • Next call is May 3rd 1PM ET

Action Items

  • Ag burn QA reports generated for WG (Vukovich)
  • Continued to communicate with AIRFIRE team about assistance regarding BSky modules and input data (Co-leads and Rao)
  • State continue to review alpha inventory and report findings (ALL)
  • Start punchlist/wishlist document for improvements to beta version (Vukovich)
  • Finalized Workgroup charge document by Friday April 13(ALL)
  • Post GA's NEI2014 fire inventory documentation (GA, EPA)
  • Inquire about need for HAPs in beta version (Co-leads)
  • Investigate use of a national/state park lands shapefile for QA of alpha inventory (EPA, WA)

March 1, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Jeff Vukovich (USEPA), Tom Moore (WRAP)

Agenda

  • Introductions, roll call – name, daily job responsibilities with respect to fire and smoke issues, agency
    • set up regular meeting times for workgroup
      • suggest first Thursday of month at 1PM ET (like today)
      • build agenda for monthly calls based on a 60-min. duration

Minutes/Notes

  • Roll call taken and members given opportunity to briefly explain their daily job activities as it relates to fire inventories/modeling
  • Group will have a call once a month on first Thursday at 1PM ET
  • Overall Collaboration mission was described and wiki pages introduced for more information
  • Reviewed Draft Fires Workgroup charge document
  • Introduced the Fire Workgroup wiki webpage and Google Drive folder
  • Briefly covered the Wildland fires tech memo for the Alpha version of the 2016 fire inventory
    • Question by Farren Herron-Thorpe: Will this workgroup work on international fire inventories as well? (Canada and Mexico)
    • Klaus Scott mentioned that CARB may have plans to QA the ag burns and prescribed fires in CA
    • Trent Wickman: would like to compare 2011 and 2014 prescribed fires vs. the alpha version 2016 fires especially for Midwest region
    • Group should consider including pile burns in future versions if possible
  • Other QA products already available were introduced/shared
    • Concern on how much time workgroup members have to QA fires
    • List of information about top fires in nation for 2016 needed
  • Brief discussion on emissions modeling platform issues (speciation, hourly profile, plume-rise)

Action Items

  • All possible workgroup members review Draft Fire Workgroup Charge document (dated March 1, 2018)
  • All possible workgroup members review Wildland fires technical memo for Alpha version of 2016 fire inventory (dated Feb 22, 2018)
  • All possible workgroup members review the QA products/maps for the alpha version of the fire inventory (in QA folder on Google Drive)
  • All possible workgroup members review the alpha version fire inventory in SMOKE format
  • All workgroup members provided a list of desired QA products for fire inventories/model platform development
  • Develop list of information (emissions, acres-burned) of top fires in nation in 2016 from alpha version of inventory (USEPA, Vukovich)
  • Contact and invite AIRFIRE team to provide more information on how to obtain Bluesky module updates during future workgroup call (USEPA, Rao and Vukovich)
  • Develop technical memo describing the current approach for handling fire emissions modeling temporal, speciation and vertical allocation issues at EPA (USEPA, Vukovich)

  • Agenda items for future calls
    • Closure on Charge doc
    • Milestones for Fire Workgroup
    • “stable” modules and complete activity data for using BlueSky framework to prepare historic and future projection fire EIs
    • Discussion on how to define scope and desired improvements for beta version of 2016 fire inventory
    • Key parameterizations of fire activity data (consumption, fuel loadings, acres and piles, plume rise, speciation profiles, others)
    • Estimating future fire emissions to bound air quality planning projections