The international association of wildland fire (iawf), the national wildfire coordinating group (nwcg) smoke committee (smoc), and the joint fire science program (jfsp) are hosting the international…

The international association of wildland fire (iawf), the national wildfire coordinating group (nwcg) smoke committee (smoc), and the joint fire science program (jfsp) are hosting the international smoke symposium, october 21-24, 2013 at the university of maryland, adelphi, MD. This symposium will bring together air quality, fire, and smoke specialists from the research community, non-governmental organizations (ngos), local/state/federal government agencies, tribes, and private practitioners and organizations. Participants will discuss the state-of-the-science and state-of-the-applied-science for smoke management and addressing the air quality and climate impacts of wildland fire smoke. The iawf, nwcg-smoc and jfsp are committed to partnering with NASA to integrate research that can meet the challenge of climate and environmental change into our expanding conferences and training opportunities in order to disseminate this information to the operational professionals who deal with wildland fire, including those who work in wildland, structural, military and emergency services. A virtual/hybrid conference component will be incorporated in order to expand attendance and include individuals who cannot travel to the conference. This will also allow integration of an online learning component, which will support active connection with our audience year-round. Smoke management is about balancing the need for fire as an essential ecological disturbance while mitigating the impacts of smoke. Land managers are trying to accomplish their management goals under tighter air quality standards and face challenges to the social acceptability of the use of fire, even as a changing climate promises to bring more fire (and thus smoke) to the landscape and our atmosphere. Smoke is a complex phenomena, governed by weather, fuels, and topography - IT can be lofted high into the atmosphere, held close to the ground, and can undergo chemical transformations as IT advects and mixes with other pollutant sources. The impacts of smoke cross many scales, from short-term near-source to long term (e.g. climate scale) and far-reaching international boundaries. This conference is mission critical to NASA s applications community and is in line with NASA's commitment to training, professional development and inspiring the next generation of scientists and explorers. The symposium aligns with NASA s strategic goal 2: expand scientific understanding of the earth and the universe in which we live. More specifically, the symposium aligns with NASA s strategic goal 2.1: advance earth system science to meet the challenges of climate and environmental change. The symposium brings together our current knowledge of the science of smoke and fire emissions. The challenge is how to meet a future of increased fire on the landscape, the ecological need for fire, and address the health and welfare impacts of smoke. Much of managing smoke is about mitigating impacts, which can be in the form of meteorological scheduling of planned/controlled burns, or by communication and messaging during large wildfire smoke impacts. NASA s component question of how can earth system science improve mitigation of and adaptation to global change gets at the key to what the symposium will deliver a solution or path forward for the future that will be a combination of improved earth system science, informed policy decisions, improved communication and messaging, and operational tool development.