You are here:
Development of Emissions from the Burning of Piled Woody Biomass for the 2023 National Emissions Inventory
Citation:
Beidler, J., J. Vukovich, AND G. Pouliot. Development of Emissions from the Burning of Piled Woody Biomass for the 2023 National Emissions Inventory. 2025 Emissions Inventory Conference, RTP, NC, September 15 - 18, 2025.
Impact/Purpose:
Pile burns were a previously uncharacterized source in the national emissions inventory. This led to either missing emissions or in some cases overestimates due to misidentification. This presentation will show the development of emissions estimates and the contribution to the total PM2.5 in the NEI to help stakeholders understand the process and impacts.
Description:
The burning of piled woody biomass, or pile burns, is used to dispose of cut and downed wood from logging operations and to reduce hazardous fuels on wildlands. Pile burning is common throughout the western and southeastern United States (US) and is the primary prescribed fire practice in the Pacific Northwest. A process for estimating pile burn emissions on a national scale using local and national activity data was developed and applied for the 2022 collaborative emissions modeling platform, paving the way for its first inclusion in the National Emissions Inventory (NEI) in 2023. Pile burn activity data for the 2023 NEI was collected from sixteen state submissions and two federal datasets. The draft 2023 emissions inventory included nearly 30,000 tons of primary PM2.5 from pile burns with the highest emissions found in the western and southeastern United States. Pile burns fill a source gap that existed in previous NEIs that make the total emissions more complete at both local and national scales. We present the method used to estimate pile burn emissions at a national level and the resulting 2023 estimates, as well as discuss future improvements.
