You are here:
Grassland and forest understory biomass emissions from prescribed fires in the southeastern United States – RxCADRE 2012
Citation:
Strand, T., B. Gullett, S. Urbanski, S. O'Neil, B. Potter, J. Aurell, A. Holder, N. Larkin, M. Moore, AND M. Rorig. Grassland and forest understory biomass emissions from prescribed fires in the southeastern United States – RxCADRE 2012. International Journal of Wildland Fire. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood Victoria, Australia, 25(1):102-113, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
This paper reports on the results of air emission testing by multiple groups during prescribed burns at Eglin AFB, Florida. The work was part of a large, multi-organization effort in which a a whole fire event was characterized for emissions, fire dynamics, species outcome, meteorology, etc. The work was sponsored, in part, by the Joint Fire Sciences Program and DoD/SERDP.
Description:
Smoke measurements were made during grass and forest understory prescribed fires as part of a comprehensive program to understand fire and smoke behaviour. Instruments deployed on the ground, airplane and tethered aerostat platforms characterized the smoke plumes through measurements of CO2, CO, CH4, and PM and measurements of optical properties and photographic imaging. The resulting dataset provides a comprehensive, time-resolved characterization of smoke emissions. There were four main results in the areas of measurement platform, black carbon emissions, particulate optical properties, and emission factors. Distinctions were observed in aerial and ground-based measurements, with aerial measurements exhibiting smaller particle size distributions and PM emission factors, likely due to particle settling. Black carbon emission factors were similar for both burns and were highest during the initial flaming phase. On average the particles from the forest fire were less absorbing than those from the grass fires due to the longer duration of smouldering combustion with the forest biomass. CO and CH4 emission factors were over twice as high for the forest burn compared to the grass burn, corresponding with a lower modified combustion efficiency and greater smouldering combustion.
