In a prior work, we determined smoke emissions and impacts in the U.S. (United States) Southern Great Plains (SGP) based on a direct technique, which involves the use of satellite measurements of energy released by fires. This SGP region was chosen since extensive agricultural and planned burning occurs there annually. MODIS Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and Fire Radiative Energy (FRE) release rates, acquired in 2004 from the Terra and Aqua satellites, were used to derive a FRE-based smoke emission coefficient (Ce- kg/MJ), which when multiplied by the radiative energy released by a fire (MJ/s) gives the rate of smoke emission (kg/s). This study demonstrated the feasibility of using FRE for smoke emission estimation in the U.S. SGP. Moreover, analysis of the smoke production patterns side-by-side with local air-quality measurements and back-trajectories show that, although the region is occasionally impacted by smoke from long-range transport, the impact of smoke from the local biomass-burning activities on the regional air quality is significant. In this paper, initial examination of Cloud-Aerosol LIDAR and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) data has been useful to determine plume height, which will enable more accurate estimates of injection height and smoke emission. Analysis of satellite data, particularly from MODIS and CALIPSO, will likely lead to significant advances in smoke pollution estimation.