Wildland Fire Emissions Inventory System v2.2022.08

mtri.org
For Consume's fuel moisture inputs, WFEIS uses modeled values based on a burned area's day and location. A single fuel moisture is assigned for each burned area. When using the calculator, leave moisture scenario on 'auto' to use these default values, or assign static moistures to the entire scenario.

Modeling details:
Data sources for modeled fuel moisture:
Source Date range Description

The fuelbed system determines the fuel loadings used in the Consume emissions calculations.

By default, WFEIS uses FCCS fuelbeds, which are designed to interface with the Consume emissions model, but users can choose to use NAWFD fuelbeds instead. Using NAWFD enables the quantification of error attributed to variability in fuel loadings in emissions estimations; note that some of NAWFD's LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type group fuelbeds are missing data, specifically several prominent managed fuelbeds: Managed Tree Plantation, Modified-Managed Prairie Grassland.

In general NAWFD median loadings are most similar to FCCS loadings while NAWFD mean loadings tend to skew higher than FCCS.
NAWFD stochastic loadings are drawn randomly from probability distributions and so will vary for every model run, but in general they will be most similar to NAWFD mean loadings.

The GlobalFCCS fuels map is used by default for any calculator queries made outside of North America. Using GlobalFCCS produces emissions estimates that are on average 36% lower in the United States in comparison to FCCS, but 58% higher in Canada in comparison to the FCCS fuelbeds assigned to the FBP fuels map (see below).
System Description

Mapping fuelbeds from basemaps

WFEIS uses lookup tables to translate from a basemap pixel value to fuelbed.

US

For the US, both the FCCS and NAWFD fuelbed systems use the LANDFIRE (LF) Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) basemap. Different LANDFIRE versions represent ground conditions in years 2001, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016 (REMAP), and 2020. In WFEIS, burned areas are intersected with the most recently available LF version for the burned date. e.g. all burned areas occurring <2008 use the LF 2001 basemap; burned areas 2008-2009 use the LF 2008 basemap; burned areas 2010-2011 use the LF 2010 basemap; etc.

Canada

For Canada, WFEIS uses the Fuel Behavior Prediciton (FBP) Fuel Type map. Each FBP type is assigned to an FCCS fuelbed to get fuel loading data.

Global

For global queries, WFEIS uses the Global FCCS map developed by Pettinari and Chuvieco (2016). Because this is a global dataset, it is coarser resolution both spatially (250m vs 30m for LANDFIRE EVT) and in terms of fuelbed definition: whereas the US-based FCCS fuelbeds are often defined by predominant vegetation species (e.g. “Western juniper / sagebrush savannah”), the global FCCS fuelbeds are more broadly defined by ecotype and general vegetation type (e.g. “boreal forest/taiga needleleaf evergreen trees”).
The burned area source determines the timing, location, and extent of the fire(s) used in the analysis:

* timing determines fuel moisture inputs and the basemap year;
* location determines fuel loading inputs; and
* extent determines area input for emissions calculations.

Quantitative comparison of burned area products.

When using the calculator, users can select User submission to draw/upload their own burned area boundaries.
Name Date range Spatial domain IDs? Description

Contacts


Nancy H.F. French Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
e-mail 		Michael Billmire CMS-GIS/LIS
Lead Developer
e-mail


How to cite WFEIS


Billmire, M., N.H.F. French, D. McKenzie, B. Koziol, T. Erickson. "The Wildland Fire Emissions Inventory System." https://wfeis.mtri.org, accessed [access date].


Publications explaining WFEIS


French, N.H.F., D. McKenzie, T. Erickson, B. Koziol, M. Billmire, K.A. Endsley, N.K.Y. Scheinerman, L. Jenkins, M.E. Miller, R. Ottmar, and S. Prichard. "Modeling regional-scale fire emissions with the Wildland Fire Emissions Information System." Earth Interactions 18, no. 16 (2014)


Publications that used WFEIS


Smith, J.E., Billmire, M., French, N.H. and Domke, G.M., 2024. Application of the wildland fire emissions inventory system to estimate fire emissions on forest lands of the United States. Carbon Balance and Management, 19(1), p.26.

Faulstich, S.D., Schissler, A.G., Strickland, M.J. and Holmes, H.A., 2022. Statistical comparison and assessment of four fire emissions inventories for 2013 and a large wildfire in the Western United States. Fire, 5(1), p.27.


Tools/datasets used in WFEIS


Fuelbed map (CONUS): LANDFIRE EVT and FCCS
Fuelbed map (Canada): Fuel Behavior Prediction fuel types map
Fuelbed map (global): Global Fuelbed Dataset (Pettinari and Chuvieco 2016)
Emissions software: Fuel & Fire Tools (FFT; includes FCCS and CONSUME)
Emission factors: Smoke Emissions Reference Application (SERA; used in CONSUME)
Fuel moisture data: gridMET (used for 1000-hr fuel moisture for CONUS)
Fuel moisture data: Global Fire WEather Database (GFWED); used for duff and litter moisture input as well as 1000-hr fuel moisture inputs for non-CONUS burns)

Archived (pre-version 2) reports/documents/data



Report (PDF) Early development history of WFEIS including funding sources and a list of all contributing developers.
Report (PDF): Comparison of GFED v3.1 and WFEIS v0.3 fire emissions models, June 2014
Report (PDF): WFEIS Uncertainty Report, May 2014
Article (Link): French, N.H.F., W.J. de Groot, L.K. Jenkins, B.M. Rogers, E.C. Alvarado, B. Amiro, B. de Jong, S. Goetz, E. Hoy, E. Hyer, R. Keane, D. McKenzie, S.G. McNulty, B.E Law, R. Ottmar, D.R. Perez-Salicrup, J. Randerson, K.M. Robertson, and M. Turetsky. "Model comparisons for estimating carbon emissions from North American wildland fire." Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011). 10.1029/2010JG001469
Reports produced under NASA Earth Science Carbon Monitoring Program Grant #NNX12AM91G:

Report (PDF): Annual Progress Report (Year 1), August 2013