Opportunity Title:

Prescribed Fire Air Quality Modeling

Research Area:

Air

EPA Lab/Center/Office:

National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL)

Location:

Research Triangle Park, NC

Duration:

Up to 12 months

Brief Summary:

A need exists to accurately simulate the impacts of prescribed fire to ambient ozone and particulate matter using numerical models. These needs include retrospective regulatory assessments, human exposure studies and forecasting. EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL)’s modeling system needs more realistic information about prescribed burning management techniques to improve wildland fire representation. This type of data will replace default information that often does not reflect actual land management practices.

Opportunity Description:

This internship opportunity seeks an individual with interest in collecting information from land management agencies that regularly do prescribed burns regarding time of burns, typical acres burned, fuel type and information about conditions (e.g., meteorology and biofuel moisture) that would restrict prescribed burning. This information will be translated for NERL’s air quality modeling system representing prescribed fire emissions, plume transport and plume chemistry to improve key inputs and also to develop a simple approach for predicting prescribed fires for forecasting simulations. Further, the opportunity may include the application of the photochemical model with alternative or perturbed inputs to quantify specific areas of uncertainty related to the different types of information collected.

Opportunities for Professional Development:

The participant will increase knowledge in land management practices, atmospheric science, wildland fire science (plume transport and chemistry), learn atmospheric numerical modeling, develop scientific writing skills, and journal publication.

Point of Contact or Mentor:

George Pouliot, pouliot.george@epa.gov