HYSPLIT Prescribed Burn Capability Upgraded

March 24, 2023
The prescribed burn capability employing BlueSky 4 from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) was upgraded this week to several online HYSPLIT applications. ARL’s HYSPLIT model can be used to estimate the spatial and temporal evolution of smoke (as PM_2.5) that originates from a prescribed burn. The location and the area of the burn are the only required inputs. The upgraded prescribed burn is available to NWS Weather Forecast Offices, registered HYSPLIT users, and public users through several software systems intended for respective groups of users.
BlueSky 4 is not a model, but it connects models together and makes them easy to run in combination. It is a culmination of USFS research on fire ecology and combustion and it estimates fire emissions using fuel loadings from a database, modeling combustion and heat released, and computing emission factors.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service firefighter lights prairie on fire during a prescribed fire at Kulm Wetland Management District in North Dakota. Photo by Jen Jewett/USFWS