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Climate and Radiation
Past

Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments Experiment - Air Quality (FIREX-AQ)

Fire emissions in the US are approximately half from Northwestern wildfires and half from prescribed fires that burn mostly in the Southeast US. Wildfires burn slightly more fuel and therefore have overall larger emissions, but prescribed fires dominate the area burned and the number of fires. FIREX-AQ will investigate both wild and prescribed fires. The overarching objective of FIREX-AQ is to provide measurements of trace gas and aerosol emissions for wildfires and prescribed fires in great detail, relate them to fuel and fire conditions at the point of emission, characterize the conditions relating to plume rise, follow plumes downwind to understand chemical transformation and air quality impacts, and assess the efficacy of satellite detections for estimating the emissions from sampled fires.

Launch Date
July 2019
Class
Flight Project Field Campaign
Website

Fire emissions in the US are approximately half from Northwestern wildfires and half from prescribed fires that burn mostly in the Southeast US. Wildfires burn slightly more fuel and therefore have overall larger emissions, but prescribed fires dominate the area burned and the number of fires. FIREX-AQ will investigate both wild and prescribed fires. The overarching objective of FIREX-AQ is to provide measurements of trace gas and aerosol emissions for wildfires and prescribed fires in great detail, relate them to fuel and fire conditions at the point of emission, characterize the conditions relating to plume rise, follow plumes downwind to understand chemical transformation and air quality impacts, and assess the efficacy of satellite detections for estimating the emissions from sampled fires.

Related Publications

2024. "Role of chemical production and depositional losses on formaldehyde in the Community Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Multiphase Mechanism (CRACMM).", Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 24 (22): 12903-12924 [10.5194/acp-24-12903-2024] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "Emission Factors for Crop Residue and Prescribed Fires in the Eastern US During FIREX‐AQ.", Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 128 (18): [10.1029/2023jd039309] [Journal Article/Letter]

2024. "Parameterizations of US wildfire and prescribed fire emission ratios and emission factors based on FIREX-AQ aircraft measurements.", Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 24 (2): 929-956 [10.5194/acp-24-929-2024] [Journal Article/Letter]

2022. "Constrained Retrievals of Aerosol Optical Properties Using Combined Lidar and Imager Measurements During the FIREX-AQ Campaign.", Frontiers in Remote Sensing, 3 [10.3389/frsen.2022.818605] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX‐AQ).", Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 128 (2): [10.1029/2022jd037758] [Journal Article/Letter]