Simulation and evaluation of smoke plume rise

Smoke plume rise is an important emission property for simulating and projecting diffusion and transport of smoke pollutants emitted from wildland fires and their air quality effects. This study conducts plume rise simulation and evaluation of prescribed burns in the southeastern United States. The simulation was conducted with Daysmoke, a smoke plume rise model developed specifically for prescribed burn in this region. This model describes three processes of particle movement, that is, moving up with a plume, dropping out of plume, and irregular movements due to turbulence. Nearly a dozen of burn cases during the winter and spring seasons of 2009 were examined. The burn sites included forests and other ecosystems in national forest park and wildlife refuge, and military bases. Burned areas ranged from hundreds to thousands of acres. The measured plume heights with a ceilometer were used to evaluate the simulations. In addition, the sensitivity of plume rise simulation to various burn and atmospheric properties and the importance of plume rise calculation to air quality simulation were also analyzed.