WILDLAND FIRE AND AIR QUALITY – JANUARY 19, 2016 1 | PAGE

Wildland Fire and Air Quality

This summary document is intended for resource managers

About Wildland Fire 

A wildland fire is any non-structure fire that occurs in forests, scrublands, grasslands, and marshlands. 

There can be two types of wildland fires: wildfires (unplanned), and prescribed fires (intentionally 

ignited for management purposes). At the right times and in the right places, wildland fires play an 

important ecological role across the globe, enhancing public and firefighter safety, benefitting those plant 

and animal species that depend on wildland fires for habitat restoration, reducing understory vegetation 

or encroachment, and meeting other ecological requirements. 

Wildfires are increasing in both numbers and intensity as result of past fire suppression 

practices and climate change. 

In the past decade (2005 – 2014), wildfires burned on average nearly 9.4 million acres annually, and the 

U.S. Government spent nearly $16 billion on wildfire suppression. Past practices of extinguishing every 

fire combined with impacts related to climate change are leading to larger, more intense, more frequent 

wildfires, threatening life, safety, and property. These fires can impair air quality and harm ecosystems in 

the U.S. that provide a wealth of goods and services such as timber, wildfire habitat, erosion 

management, water quality and supply, recreation, and aesthetic value.1,2

 

Reducing the Risk of Catastrophic Wildfires 

One of the ways to reduce the intensity and spread of wildfires is to remove or reduce the unwanted 

vegetation in fire-prone areas. Fire is an important tool to reduce fuel loads, unnatural understory, and 

tree density, helping to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. Using prescribed fire and/or mechanical 

treatments, such as chipping and thinning, can slow the spread of wildfire and diminish wildfire 

intensity. Prescribed fire and some wildfires can mimic the natural processes necessary to maintain firedependent ecosystems, minimizing catastrophic wildfires and the risks they pose to safety, property and 

air quality.

 1 Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/cirareport.pdf 2 Vose, James M.; Peterson, David L.; Patel-Weynand, Toral, eds. 2012. Effects of climatic variability and change on forest ecosystems: a 

comprehensive science synthesis for the U.S. forest sector. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-870. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station 
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Over the past decade, federal land management agencies have treated more than 3.5 million acres of 

wildland vegetation annually by using prescribed fires, which mimic the natural process, and mechanical 

methods. In some parts of the U.S., tribal, state, and local governments and private landowners actively 

manage considerably more land area than the federal agencies. Yet, vegetation continues to accumulate 

at a faster rate than is possible to control by all types of fuels management practices or wildfire 

combined.3 Despite all efforts to prevent or eliminate fire, wildfires occur, particularly in vegetation types 

most adapted or dependent upon fire. In fact, attempts to prevent or eliminate all fires allow vegetation 

to accumulate and have led to prolonged, larger, and more intense fires. Managing vegetation, including 

the use of prescribed fire, helps to manage the risk that catastrophic wildfires pose to ecosystems and 

society, including risks to public health from smoke.

Landowners and land managers across the country seek to safely and effectively 

extinguish fire when needed; use fire where beneficial; manage their natural resources; 

and, as a nation, live with wildland fire.

The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy4 reaffirms that federal, tribal, territorial, 

state, and local governments, and non-governmental partners, private property owners, and public 

stakeholders will need to increase efforts to work together across all lands to manage wildland fire. The 

primary goals of the National Strategy are to restore and maintain fire resilience across landscapes, which 

foster healthy ecosystems and provide benefits to society across all jurisdictions; prepare communities so 

they can live with and withstand wildfire without loss of life and property; and safely, effectively, and 

efficiently respond to wildfires when they occur. The activities in the strategy could diminish the 

associated air quality risks to the public which can reach unhealthy levels during wildfires.

 3 Calkin, D. E., et al., (2015). Negative consequences of positive feedbacks in U.S. wildfire management, Forest Ecosystems 2:9

4 National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture (2014) 

https://www.forestandrangelands.gov/strategy/index.shtml

Untreated Treated

Fence

Figure 1 – (Halfway Fire, Grand Canyon National 

Park) In June 2013, the Halfway Fire provided an 

excellent example of how planned prescribed fire 

treatments can be effective in limiting the spread of 

future wildfires, protecting values at risk, and 

reducing fire suppression costs. The wildfire burned 

under extreme conditions, yet reduced in intensity 

dramatically as it passed from untreated vegetation, 

on the left side of the fence, into a forest stand managed 

with prescribed fire on the right side of the fence. This 

photograph was taken one year after the wildfire. 
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Wildfires pose a direct threat to air quality and public safety—a threat that can be 

mitigated through management of wildland vegetation.

Attempts to suppress all wildfires in the past have resulted in unintended consequences, including 

increased risks to both people and ecosystems. Wildfire smoke can result in significant air quality 

impacts to public health, particularly for at-risk groups, and impacts to safety and transportation 

through diminished visibility on roads and aviation corridors. In contrast, prescribed fires provide an 

opportunity to adjust the timing of fire and some ability to manage the amount of smoke and its path, 

thereby reducing the impact of fire emissions. Prescribed fire, managed using basic smoke management

practicesi5

, can reduce the impacts on air quality while meeting fire-related objectives. 

EPA is committed to working with land 

managers to effectively use prescribed fire to 

reduce the impact of catastrophic wildfirerelated emissions. 

Smoke from wildfires can cause air quality to exceed 

the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)

health standards for fine particulate matter and ozone. 

The agency’s Exceptional Events Rule provides 

regulatory relief for states that exceed national air 

quality standards because of emissions from certain 

sources of pollution, including wildfires and certain 

prescribed fires. EPA recently proposed updates to the 

rule to simplify and shorten the process for state air 

agencies to address the impacts of wildfire smoke in 

their air quality plans. EPA also released a draft 

guidance document that will help state air agencies 

develop supporting information for wildfires that affect 

monitored ozone concentrations. 

EPA is committed to working with land managers to 

effectively use prescribed fire to reduce the impact of 

catastrophic wildfire-related emissions on 

concentrations of particulate matter and ozone. 

We will work together to provide information 

and help the public protect their health.

EPA, U.S. Department of the Interior, and U.S. 

Department of Agriculture are working together to 

provide the public information on the effects of smoke from fires – including information on steps people 

can take to reduce their exposure and protect their health from wildfire smoke. Information on current 

wildfires and air quality is available on the AirNow.gov website at: http://go.usa.gov/cCc5F .

 5 http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1046311.pdf

Figure 2 – (Paradise Fire, Olympic National 

Park) Managing vegetation, including the use of 

prescribed fire, helps to manage the risk to 

ecosystems and to society, including managing risk 

to human health from smoke impacts.