When wildfires blaze, the smoke matters. It threatens everyone, from the firefighters and helicopters battling the flames, to the public at large.
The U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab in Seattle is trying to clear the air — or least tell people where to find breathable conditions.
The lab has built a program called BlueSky that takes data and modelling from numerous sources and generates predictions about where wildfire smoke will travel over time and the chemical nature of the emissions.
BlueSky’s predictions rely on weather forecasts, data on a fire’s size, what kind of material it’s burning, the moisture of the fire’s fuel and the terrain. The program provides general smoke forecasts as well as detailed reports predicting where smoke will travel, providing essential information to incident commanders fighting fires and health officials.
Click here for source (Geekwire)
Photo: BlueSky
