wildfires Archives - NOAA Research

Helping communities prepare for wildfires

March 14, 2024

Recent wildfire disasters have devastated Hawaii, California, North Carolina, and parts of the western U.S., while major cities during the summer of 2023 saw dangerous air quality levels due to smoke from Canadian fires. Critical research is being funded by an additional $100 million over five years through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) in FY22 to improve the prediction, detection, and recovery from wildfires.

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Looking back at Colorado’s Marshall Fire

January 8, 2024

Analyzing the forecast, decision support and new tools for the future The wind-driven Marshall Fire erupted into the most costly wildfire in Colorado history on

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Study validates accuracy of NOAA’s smoke forecasting model during the Camp Fire

July 5, 2022

A research team led by scientists from the University of California Berkeley and NOAA found that HRRR-Smoke accurately predicted the intensification of smoke pollution from the Camp

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Smoke from wildfires influences ozone pollution on a global scale

January 10, 2022

New NOAA analysis of a ground-breaking global atmospheric airborne research mission shows that smoke from biomass burning substantially contributes to one of the most common and harmful constituents of urban air pollution: ozone. Another record-breaking fire season across the western United States and Canada fouled skies as far downwind as Boston and New York City with wildfire smoke, visibly demonstrating the impacts that fires can have on air quality thousands of miles away. Now, new NOAA research demonstrates that the effects of fire emissions on the atmosphere are even larger and far more widespread than previously believed, and substantially contribute to one of the most common and harmful constituents of urban air pollution: ozone.

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Study of wildfire plumes provide insights into methods that might cool the planet

May 14, 2021

The dynamics that lift smoke from large wildfires into the upper atmosphere could potentially be employed one day to help temporarily cool the planet, based on the findings of a modeling study led by NOAA scientists.

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Giant Australian bushfire injected 1 million tons of smoke in the atmosphere

April 15, 2021

Massive high-altitude clouds of smoke warmed the Southern Hemisphere's stratospshere by about 1 degree Celsius for six months, and likely contributed to the large and persistent ozone hole that formed over Antarctica during the austral spring.

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New technology uses NOAA data to provide faster disaster warnings

October 1, 2020

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wildfires