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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

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