Managing Smoke Risk from Wildland Fires: Northern California as a Case Study.

ABSTRACT: Smoke fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) from increasing wildfires in the western United States threatens public health. While land managers often prioritize reducing wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface, the impact on regional air quality from mitigating wildfire spread has been less explored. We developed a framework to quantify wildfire contributions to smoke exposure and assess targeted land management strategies. This data-driven approach integrates fire emissions and smoke transport to generate a smoke risk index at 0.25° × 0.25° resolution. We deploy the smoke risk index in an online tool, enabling stakeholders to analyze smoke risk under various scenarios of burned area, fuel consumption, and land management. Using Northern California as a case study, we estimate t

SUBMITTER: Chung KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12269078 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature