Prescribed Burning and Smoke Management Planning Webinar Archive
This webinar, recorded on May 15, 2024, focused on Prescribed Burning and Smoke Management Planning in Flint Hills, Kansas. Prescribed fires are used annually in Flint Hills to control invasive woody species and improve forage production for the multi-billion-dollar beef-cattle industry. However, burning releases harmful pollutants that can contribute to air quality problems for communities across a multi-state area near the burning site.
EPA ORD, EPA Region 7, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and Kansas State University collaborated to use EPA’s Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments (VELMA) model to synthesize long-term experimental data to describe the combined effects of climate, fire, grazing, topography, and soil moisture and nutrients on tallgrass prairie productivity and fuel loads. This work is just one example of VELMA’s applicability for informing prescribed fire best practices across ecoregions.
Prescribed Burning and Smoke Management Planning Webinar Recording
Prescribed Burning and Smoke Management Planning Webinar Presentation (pdf)