DOI: 10.5061/dryad.4mw6m90h7
title: Smoke designations for eastern Kansas monitoring sites during March-May 2022

description: Prescribed fires (fires intentionally set for mitigation purposes) produce
 pollutants, which have negative effects on human and animal health. One of
 the pollutants produced from fires is fine particulate matter (PM2.5).
 PM2.5 can penetrate deep into the lungs and harm cardiovascular and
 respiratory systems. The Flint Hills region of Kansas experiences
 extensive prescribed burning each spring (March - May). Smoke from
 prescribed fires is often understudied due to a lack of monitoring in the
 rural regions where prescribed burning occurs, as well as the short
 duration and small size of the fires. Our goal was to attribute PM2.5
 concentrations to the prescribed burning in the Flint Hills. To determine
 PM2.5 increases from local burning, we used low-cost PM2.5 sensors
 (PurpleAir) and satellite observations. The Flint Hills were also affected
 by smoke transported from fires in other regions during 2022. We separated
 the transported smoke from smoke from fires in eastern Kansas. Based on
 data from the PurpleAir sensors, we found the 24-hour median PM2.5
 increased by 5.2 µg m-3 on days impacted by smoke from fires in the
 eastern Kansas region compared to days unimpacted by smoke. We found the
 Flint Hills to be the most smoke PM2.5 impacted region compared to the
 surrounding area across satellite products and in-situ
 measurements. 
description: Daily
 PM<sub>2.5</sub> measurements for ground-based monitoring
 sites in eastern Kansas were categorized by the type of smoke impacting
 the monitoring site using a decision tree. Designations were determined
 for every monitor during the eastern Kansas prescribed burning season
 (March - May) of 2022. The decision process considered the following
 variables: HMS smoke plumes and fire hotspots, in situ
 PM<sub>2.5</sub> measurements from PurpleAir and EPA AQS
 sites, in situ coarse mode concentrations (PM<sub>10</sub> -
 PM<sub>2.5</sub>) from EPA AQS sites, daily wind speed,
 categorization of the previous day, and proximity to an urban
 setting. 
description: # Smoke designations for eastern Kansas monitoring sites during March-May
 2022
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4mw6m90h7](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4mw6m90h7) These datasets contain the smoke designations for each available ground-based PM<sub>2.5</sub> monitor in the eastern Kansas region (75 total) for every day during March through May of 2022. This includes monitors from the PurpleAir network, the Environmental Protection Agency Air Quality System (EPA AQS), and PurpleAir monitor that were deployed by Colorado State University. The locations of each monitor are reported and have been rounded for privacy of the monitor hosts. ## Description of the data and file structure The data are formatted in comma-separated values files. In the smoke designation dataset, the first column is the date (format = Month/Day/Year) and the remaining columns are the monitoring site ID numbers. The dataset of the monitor locations includes the monitoring site ID numbers and the corresponding latitudes and longitudes. For the smoke designations: * 0 = the monitor was not impacted by smoke for the day (Smoke-free) * 1 = the monitor was impacted by local smoke only * 2 = the monitor was impacted by transported smoke only * 3 = the monitor was impacted by local and transported smoke * n/a (blank cell) = there was no PM<sub>2.5</sub> measurement from the monitor (e.g., it was offline, not installed yet), so a smoke designation was not given ## Sharing/Access information Pre-generated files of PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentrations from the EPA AQS can be downloaded from here: [https://aqs.epa.gov/aqsweb/airdata/download\\\\\\\\_files.html](https://aqs.epa.gov/aqsweb/airdata/download\\\\\\\\_files.html) Public PurpleAir PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentrations can be downloaded here: [https://www2.purpleair.com/](https://www2.purpleair.com/) PurpleAir PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentrations from the monitors deployed by Colorado State University can be accessed here: [https://doi.org/doi:10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wqd](https://doi.org/doi:10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wqd).