Development and use of the Wildland Fire Emissions Information System for quantifying and mapping fire emissions for North America

Nancy HF French, Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI), nancy.french@mtu.edu (Presenter)
Don McKenzie, USDA Forest Service, dmck@u.washington.edu
Tyler A Erickson, Michigan Tech Research Institute, taericks@mtu.edu

Despite advances in GIS resources, geospatial data needed to estimate fire emissions across broad regions for carbon and smoke management have been difficult to obtain. Inconsistent data and nascent approaches to modeling emissions have led to estimates of carbon emissions that vary widely based on the approach and data used. Under a NASA-sponsored project, the Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (WFEIS) has been developed to improve access to data and provide a consistent approach to estimating emissions at continental scales (see http://wfeis.mtri.org). The system taps into data and tools developed by the US Forest Service to describe fuels, fuel loadings, and fuel consumption, and merges information from USGS and NASA on fire location and timing. Currently, WFEIS provides access to MODIS burn area for North America and US fire-perimeter maps from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity products from the USGS, overlays them on 1-km fuels maps for the US, and calculates fuel consumption and emissions with an open-source version of the Consume model, both publicly available from the WFEIS web page. Mapped fuel moisture is derived from daily weather data. In addition to tabular results, WFEIS produces multiple vector and raster formats. The WFEIS operates in a web environment making data and model outputs available to a broad set of users. The system provides a framework for estimating fire emissions for regional applications where data are available. Extension of WFEIS into Mexico and Canada has been facilitated by collaborations with Mexican and Canadian resource experts achieved under the NASA project. WFEIS is built from open-source software following international standards facilitating extended system development. We present an overview of the WFEIS system, including the web-based system functionality and data sets used for emissions estimates for the US. Examples of extending the WFEIS framework to other regions or specific applications are also presented.

Presentation: 2011_Oct05_AM_French_335.pptx (6338k)

Presentation Type:  Plenary Talk

Session:  Poster Speed Talks:

Presentation Time:  Wed 9:40 AM  (5 minutes)