Harvard’s new tool, SMRT-Flames, focuses on mitigating wildfire smoke exposure by aiding fire managers and policymakers in planning controlled burns. The research promises to save lives and protect vulnerable populations.
A team of atmospheric modelers at Harvard University has developed a digital tool that could potentially change how communities prepare for and mitigate the impact of wildfires. This online platform, known as SMRT-Flames, identifies areas in need of controlled burns or other fire management strategies. The ultimate goal is to prevent future uncontrolled fires and reduce smoke exposure for downwind populations.
The research, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, is led by Loretta Mickley, a senior research fellow in chemistry-climate interactions at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and leader of the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group.
Two former members from Mickley’s group, Tianjia (Tina) Liu (now an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia) and Makoto Kelp (now a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University) also played key roles as co-leaders of the effort.
“We want to know not just where catastrophic fires are likely to occur, but which fires will generate the most smoke, and affect the most people downwind,” Mickley said in a news release.
She emphasized that many people, especially in the West, die prematurely from breathing wildfire smoke, even as there has been significant progress in reducing urban air pollution along the coasts.
Targeted Land Management: A Strategy for Cleaner Air
The researchers studied Northern California, a region prone to wildfires, and estimated that in 2020, implementing targeted land management in the 15 areas at highest risk (representing approximately 3.5% of the region) could have led to a reduction in total smoke exposures by up to 18%.
They also estimated that 36,400 people died from complications related to breathing fine particulate matter (“PM 2.5”) from wildfire smoke after the 2020 western fire season. These microscopic particles are a form of toxic air pollution that particularly affects vulnerable populations, such as those with asthma, heart conditions and the elderly.
SMRT-Flames is a user-friendly application that allows fire managers and policymakers to assess potential wildfire-related smoke exposure across different regions and to target land management practices accordingly.
Unlike most wildfire tools that merely predict fire risk, SMRT-Flames incorporates the aspect of smoke exposure across populations. Initially focused on Northern California, the app’s approach has the potential to be expanded to other regions.
Caption: Schematic workflow for generating smoke risk index. The index is a metric that highlights those grid cells where potential wildfires would pose the greatest population-weighted smoke exposure downwind.
Credit: Mickley Lab / Harvard SEAS
“With our methodology, you can consider hypothetical scenarios and plan prescribed fires to reduce smoke exposure over an entire region, not just the immediate area where that prescribed fire is happening,” added Liu.
Employing a Harvard-developed computer model called GEOS-Chem, the tool combines data from meteorological, chemical and geophysical sources to predict fire behavior and subsequent smoke dispersion.
Prescribed Burns: Preventive Measures for a Safer Future
The role of prescribed burns in mitigating large-scale wildfires and smoke exposure is becoming increasingly apparent. These controlled fires help to remove accumulated underbrush, thereby reducing the likelihood of more intense, uncontrollable wildfires.
“This idea of wildfires being out of control is due to a combination of factors, including climate, but also this legacy of fire suppression where we’ve actively prevented fires for the last 100 years, which has led to this huge buildup of fuels,” Kelp added.
Prior research by the team has demonstrated that prescribed burns in strategic zones across northern California, western Oregon and eastern Washington could significantly reduce wildfire smoke exposure throughout the western United States.
The research process involved integrating wildfire knowledge from various disciplines, a challenging task due to factors such as differing landscapes and meteorological conditions.
“We had decisions to make during the research process for integrating the knowledge of wildfires from various disciplines, from an atmospheric perspective as well as from a land cover perspective,” added first author Karina Chung, an undergraduate research assistant at Harvard SEAS.
One surprising insight from the study highlighted the particular vulnerability of people living at the wildland-urban interface.
“That really popped out of our results,” Mickley added. “This finding underscores the need to really think about fuel treatments close to or in those areas. We hope that our results provide some justification for considering prescribed fires as a prevention strategy, even close to where people live.”
Source: Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences