Monitoring Smoke from Landscape Fires in the Flint Hills Region of Kansas during the 2022 Burning Season

In the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, annual springtime (March - May) prescribed burning is practiced to mitigate wildfire risk, improve nutritional value of vegetation for cattle grazing, control invasive species, and maintain ecosystem diversity and health in the tall grass prairie. Smoke produced from these prescribed fires adversely impacts air quality and visibility. Regulatory monitors for fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) are located primarily in urban and suburban areas outside of the Flint Hills, which has afforded a limited understanding of the extent of smoke impacts in rural communities. To quantify the contribution of springtime prescribed burning to PM_2.5 concentrations in the Flint Hills and downwind regions, we deployed 38 PurpleAir PM_2.5 sensors with residents for the 2022 burning season. We use observations from this ground-based network alongside a suite of satellite products (e.g., NOAA Hazard Mapping System, GOES Aerosol Optical Depth) to determine the PM_2.5 attributable to smoke. In 2022, the Flint Hills region was also impacted by dust and transported smoke from high winds, drought, and wildfires in New Mexico. Here, we separate the local and transported smoke effects for our exposure estimates. Across the low-cost sensor network, 24-hour mean PM_2.5 increased by 5.2 μg m^-3 on days impacted by smoke from fires in the eastern Kansas region compared to smoke-free days. We compared our findings to two products derived from multiple satellites and ground-based measurements. We observed an increase in PM_2.5 concentrations in the Flint Hills in both satellite products and in-situ measurements during the prescribed burning period.