ISS4 · Monday, March 23
Workshops
A forum for researchers and practitioners in wildland fire, smoke management, public health, and air quality to exchange on defined topics — an opportunity for technology transfer.
The day before
Four hands-on sessions
The workshops take place on Monday, March 23, the day preceding the 4th International Smoke Symposium. Questions? Contact Mikel Robinson at execdir@iawfonline.org or (406) 625-7059.
Monday, March 23
The workshop lineup
9:00–11:00 · FireSat for Smoke: Practical Tools, Early Insights, and Research Opportunities
Instructors: Ann Kapusta, Earth Fire Alliance, and Dr. Michael Falkowski. Remote participation available.
FireSat is a satellite system designed to deliver high-temporal and spatial resolution fire characterization data. This workshop introduces the ISS community to the FireSat system and its four fire data products, and explores its relevance for smoke modeling, exposure assessment, and operational air quality forecasting — including combining FireSat data with ground-based sensor networks, and a detailed walkthrough of early sample data from the FireSat test instrument.
By the end, participants can describe the FireSat system and its remote sensing capabilities, interpret early test data, explain how FireSat complements existing air quality measurements, and evaluate use cases for their own research, monitoring, or smoke management workflows.
9:00–13:00 · Prescribed Fire and Wildfire Exceptional Events Resources and Tools
Instructors: James Boylan, Georgia Department of Natural Resources; Rick Gillam, U.S. EPA Region 4; Mary Uhl, Western States Air Resources Council (WESTAR). Remote participation available.
Tools and resources for preparing prescribed fire and wildfire Exceptional Event (EE) demonstrations. EPA shares an example demonstration for a U.S. Forest Service prescribed burn in California; Georgia EPD summarizes the streamlined approach behind its 100+ EE demonstrations covering 2021–2024; and WESTAR demonstrates an online tool for developing EE demonstrations, developed with South Coast.
14:00–18:00 · NASA Satellite Observations and Tools for Fire and Smoke Monitoring
Instructors: Aaron Naeger, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center; Carl Malings (MSU, NASA GSFC); Kristina Pistone (BAERI, NASA ARC); Caterina Mogno (UMBC, NASA GSFC).
Led by NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training (ARSET) program: an overview of advanced satellite data for detecting and monitoring wildland fires and tracking smoke plumes throughout the day — including NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) and NASA Worldview, with guided visualization of near-real-time products such as the new hourly air pollutant data from the NASA TEMPO mission.
14:00–18:00 · Wildland Fire Smoke Modeling using BlueSky Playground
Instructors: Marlin E. Martínez, University of Washington, and Susan M. O’Neill, USDA Forest Service.
Hands-on training for simulating wildland fire smoke transport from prescribed fires and wildfires. The first half covers emissions calculations and smoke modeling basics with the BlueSky Smoke Modeling Framework; the second half is a demonstration and hands-on exercise using the latest datasets and models for fuels (FCCS crosswalked with LANDFIRE), fuel consumption (CONSUME), meteorology, and atmospheric dispersion with the NOAA HYSPLIT model.
CANCELLED · Strategic Communication for Fire Smoke Scientists and Technical Experts
Instructor: Alex Griffith, COMPASS Science Communication.
This four-hour workshop on strategic communication for the fire smoke community — built around COMPASS’s Message Box tool — was cancelled.
Continue
Field trips close out the week
Friday, March 27: prescribed-fire science north to the Jones Center at Ichauway, or south to the Apalachicola National Forest and Wakulla Springs.