Transatlantic Fire Resource Guide
Air Quality and Smoke
AirFire Tools Portal
Operator: USDA Forest Service PNW Research Station, Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory (AirFire Team)
Geographic Focus: United States (national)
Tags: Smoke · Real-Time Monitoring · Model Output · Operational · Decision Support
Access: Free, public (some tools restricted to authorized users)
The AirFire Tools portal aggregates links to the most recent versions of smoke monitoring and modelling tools produced by the USFS Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in support of the Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program (IWFAQRP) and wildland fire operations, including real-time PM2.5 monitoring, historical air quality data, BlueSky model runs, and satellite-based fire and smoke analysis resources. The portal serves as a single access point for the full AirFire suite — from the BlueSky daily model viewer and Playground on-demand tool to the AirMonitor R package and EPA/IWFAQRP Fire & Smoke Map. It is an essential bookmark for smoke managers, air quality researchers, and Air Resource Advisors (ARAs) embedded with fire incident management teams.
AirNow – Wildfire Smoke and Air Quality
Operator: U.S. EPA, in partnership with USFS, NOAA, NPS, tribal, state and local air agencies
Geographic Focus: United States (national, with some North American coverage)
Tags: Smoke · Real-Time Monitoring · Map · Public Outreach · Operational
Access: Free, public
AirNow's wildfire portal aggregates real-time PM2.5 measurements from EPA-certified regulatory monitors and low-cost sensors (via PurpleAir integration) into a national Fire and Smoke Map, displaying current Air Quality Index (AQI) values alongside active fire perimeters and smoke forecast overlays. It also provides actionable public health guidance, resources for local air agencies, and links to protective action information tailored to sensitive populations. For public health officials, emergency managers, and the general public, it is the authoritative one-stop resource connecting observed smoke concentrations directly to health risk communication.
AIRPACT – Pacific Northwest Air Quality Forecast
Operator: Washington State University (WSU), Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (LAR); supported by EPA, USFS, and Northwest state agencies
Geographic Focus: Pacific Northwest U.S. (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of adjacent states)
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Short-Range · Operational
Access: Free, public
The AIRPACT interactive map viewer provides regional air quality forecast outputs — including PM2.5, ozone, and emissions fields — with overlays of BlueSky fire data, HMS satellite fire detections, AirNow monitoring sites, and Class I wilderness area boundaries, covering the Pacific Northwest at fine spatial resolution. The underlying AIRPACT-5 system uses the CMAQ atmospheric chemistry model driven by WRF meteorology and daily-updated fire emission inputs, with GIS-downloadable outputs in geopackage format for advanced users. For state air quality agencies, tribal environmental programs, prescribed burn planners, and public health officials in the Pacific Northwest, AIRPACT provides the most regionally focused operational smoke and ozone forecast tool available, particularly valuable during the region's intense summer and fall wildfire seasons.
AQmap.ca – Canadian Air Quality Map
Operator: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
Geographic Focus: Canada
Tags: Smoke · Real-Time Monitoring · Index · Map · Public Outreach
Access: Free, public
URL: https://aqmap.ca
AQmap.ca provides a real-time interactive map of air quality conditions across Canada, drawing on ECCC's national monitoring network to display current Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) readings and PM2.5 concentrations at station level. The platform is closely integrated with the AQHI communication framework and provides direct links to provincial and territorial air quality advisories and health guidance. During wildfire smoke events, it functions as a rapid national situational display for health authorities, emergency managers, and the public seeking current conditions at specific Canadian communities, complementing the 72-hour FireWork model forecasts with observed ground-truth data.
Air Quality Health Index (AQHI)
Operator: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
Geographic Focus: Canada
Tags: Smoke · Index · Public Outreach · Decision Support
Access: Free, public
URL:
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/air-quality-health-index.html
The AQHI is a Canadian health protection tool that communicates air quality on a scale from 1 to 10 (and above), designed to help the public — particularly sensitive individuals — make decisions to protect their health by adjusting outdoor activity levels in response to short-term air pollution exposure, with advice tailored to low, moderate, high, and very high health risk categories. Unlike the U.S. AQI, the AQHI is based on the combined health risk of a mixture of PM2.5, ozone, and NO2 rather than individual pollutant thresholds, reflecting Canadian epidemiological research. For fire and air quality communicators working across the Canada-U.S. border, understanding the AQHI framework is essential context for interpreting Canadian wildfire smoke advisories and messaging, as its scale and risk categories differ from the EPA AQI system used in the U.S.
BlueSky Playground (AirFire / USFS)
Operator: USDA Forest Service Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory (AirFire Team)
Geographic Focus: United States (customizable user-defined locations)
Tags: Smoke · Prescribed Fire · Model Output · Point Forecast · Operational · Decision Support
Access: Free, public
URL: https://tools.airfire.org/playground/v3.5/emissionsinputs.php
BlueSky Playground is an ad-hoc, on-demand smoke modelling tool that allows users to create emissions scenarios for prescribed burns and wildfires, then model the resulting smoke dispersion; it offers both an Express version for rapid planning and a Full version using comprehensive fuel data with expert parameter customization. Users define a fire location, size, fuel type, burn timing, and meteorological inputs to generate point-specific PM2.5 dispersion forecasts keyed to EPA AQI thresholds. The tool is primarily designed for prescribed burn practitioners who need pre-burn smoke impact assessments to inform smoke management plans, determine acceptable burn windows, and anticipate off-site air quality impacts.
Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Operator: Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) / ECMWF, EU
Geographic Focus: Global
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Satellite Imagery · Medium-Range
Access: Free, public
The CAMS chart packages provide near-real-time and forecast maps of atmospheric composition variables — including fire radiative power, aerosol optical depth, PM2.5, carbon monoxide, and smoke-layer heights — derived from ECMWF's global atmospheric model and satellite data assimilation. Forecasts extend to five days, updated twice daily, with global coverage at high horizontal resolution. For fire managers, air quality authorities, and emergency coordinators, CAMS offers a pan-continental perspective on wildfire smoke transport that is especially valuable when large fires generate transboundary plumes affecting air quality across entire continents.
Environment and Climate Change Canada – FireWork Air Quality Model
Operator: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
Geographic Focus: Canada and North America
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Short-Range · Operational
Access: Free, public
FireSmoke Canada – Wildfire Smoke & Fire Weather Portal
Operator: Weather Forecast Research Team (WFRT), University of British Columbia; supported by multiple Canadian federal and provincial agencies
Geographic Focus: Canada and North America
Tags: Smoke · Fire Weather · Forecast · Model Output · Operational · Decision Support
Access: Free, public
FireSmoke Canada is the Canadian portal for wildland fire weather and smoke information, providing access to BlueSky Canada smoke forecasts, fire weather forecasts, the SmartFire fire data system, and the BlueSky Playground smoke modelling tool, serving professionals in air quality, health and safety, emergency management, and research. The smoke forecast component delivers high-resolution, hourly and daily-average PM2.5 ground-level concentration maps driven by active fire detections reconciled through SmartFire — a GIS database integrating satellite hotspot detections and ground-truth fire reports. For Canadian air quality managers, prescribed burn planners, and public health officials, FireSmoke.ca provides an integrated modelling and data platform that bridges operational fire intelligence with smoke dispersion forecasting.
IQAir – Global Air Quality Map
Operator: IQAir AG (Switzerland)
Geographic Focus: Global
Tags: Smoke · Real-Time Monitoring · Map
Access: Free, public (commercial platform)
IQAir's interactive world air quality map aggregates real-time PM2.5 data from regulatory monitoring networks and low-cost sensors globally, displaying current AQI values (US EPA standard) with country and city rankings, updated continuously. The platform combines ground sensor data with satellite-derived aerosol information and model output to fill spatial gaps, providing one of the most globally comprehensive public-facing air quality interfaces available. For wildfire smoke tracking in regions with sparse official monitoring infrastructure — including parts of Africa, Asia, and South America — IQAir's map offers practical situational awareness, though users should be aware of data quality variability across sensor types and geographies.
NASA GEOS-5 – PM2.5 Surface Concentration Forecast
Operator: NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO)
Geographic Focus: Global (North America regional view available)
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Satellite Imagery · Research
Access: Free, public
URL: https://fluid.nccs.nasa.gov/wxmaps/chem2d/?stream=G5FPFC&field=pm25sfc&level=0®ion=nam
This page provides near-real-time and forecast surface PM2.5 maps derived from NASA's GEOS-5 atmospheric model, which assimilates MODIS and VIIRS aerosol optical depth retrievals alongside fire radiative power from satellite observations to characterize wildfire smoke, dust, sea salt, and anthropogenic pollution simultaneously. The global coverage and multi-aerosol-species capability make it particularly valuable for tracking long-range transoceanic smoke transport events — such as Canadian or Siberian fire smoke reaching Europe or North America — that regional models may handle less accurately. Researchers and air quality specialists use the GEOS-5 viewer as an independent global reference, especially where no regional operational smoke forecast exists.
NOAA RRFS-SD (Rapid Refresh Forecast System – Smoke and Dust)
Operator: NOAA Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) / Global Systems Laboratory (GSL)
Geographic Focus: Contiguous United States and North America
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Short-Range · Research
Access: Free, public (experimental)
RRFS-SD is an experimental next-generation numerical weather prediction system coupling the Rapid Refresh Forecast System — NOAA's planned successor to HRRR and RAP — with inline smoke and dust aerosol modules, running at convection-allowing resolution with frequent update cycles. It ingests near-real-time satellite fire detections for emission estimation and produces forecast fields of surface PM2.5, dust concentrations, and aerosol optical depth, representing the developmental trajectory for NOAA's future operational smoke and dust forecast capability. Fire weather meteorologists and researchers can use RRFS-SD to evaluate next-generation model performance and gain early access to improved smoke dispersion guidance ahead of eventual operational implementation.
NOAA HRRR-Smoke
Operator: NOAA Global Systems Laboratory (GSL)
Geographic Focus: Contiguous United States (CONUS)
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Short-Range · Operational
Access: Free, public
HRRR-Smoke is an experimental smoke-aware extension of NOAA's operational High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model, running at 3 km horizontal resolution with hourly updates out to 48 hours, coupling near-real-time fire emission inputs (from MODIS/VIIRS satellite detections) with smoke aerosol transport and deposition physics. Forecast outputs include hourly surface PM2.5 concentrations, column smoke fields, and aerosol optical depth, making it the highest-resolution operationally-cycling smoke forecast available for the U.S. For fire weather meteorologists, air quality forecasters, and incident management teams, HRRR-Smoke provides the spatial and temporal detail needed to anticipate smoke impacts on communities, roadways, and aviation corridors in near-real time.
NOAA HYSPLIT Trajectory Model
Operator: NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL)
Geographic Focus: Global
Tags: Smoke · Model Output · Point Forecast · Research · Operational
Access: Free, public (web interface)
HYSPLIT is NOAA's widely used Lagrangian particle trajectory and dispersion model, enabling users to compute forward or backward air mass trajectories — and full concentration/deposition fields — from any location and time using archived or forecast meteorological fields. In a wildfire context, forward trajectories identify where smoke plumes are transported from an active fire, while back-trajectories help air quality analysts trace the origin of observed PM2.5 spikes to a specific fire source. As a free, browser-accessible research and operational tool used globally by atmospheric scientists, emergency managers, and public health agencies, HYSPLIT remains one of the most cited and versatile tools in the smoke and air quality toolkit.
NWS Air Quality Forecast – PM2.5
Operator: NOAA National Weather Service / Weather Prediction Center (WPC)
Geographic Focus: Contiguous United States (CONUS)
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Short-Range · Operational
Access: Free, public
The NWS Air Quality Forecast Guidance page provides operational 48-hour forecasts of surface PM2.5 and ozone concentrations generated by NOAA's National Air Quality Forecast Capability (NAQFC), using the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model driven by NOAA meteorological inputs and emission inventories. Outputs are displayed as hourly animated maps with AQI color scales, enabling direct comparison of forecast smoke and pollution levels to health thresholds. For operational air quality forecasters at state agencies and NWS field offices, this product serves as the primary official guidance for issuing Air Quality Action Day advisories, complementing real-time monitoring data from AirNow.
PurpleAir – Air Quality Map
Operator: PurpleAir LLC
Geographic Focus: Global (sensor-dependent; densest coverage in U.S., Europe, Australia)
Tags: Smoke · Real-Time Monitoring · Map · Public Outreach
Access: Free, public
PurpleAir operates a global network of thousands of low-cost optical particle counter sensors, displaying real-time PM2.5 concentrations on an interactive map updated every two minutes, with AQI color coding and user-configurable averaging periods. While individual sensors carry greater uncertainty than regulatory-grade monitors and require correction factors (e.g., EPA's U.S.-Wide correction for wildfire smoke), the network's spatial density fills critical gaps in areas underserved by official monitoring — particularly rural and wildland-urban interface communities. During active wildfire events, PurpleAir has become an essential hyperlocal situational awareness tool for public health officials, emergency responders, and community members assessing smoke exposure in real time.
SILAM – Finnish Meteorological Institute Air Quality Forecast
Operator: Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)
Geographic Focus: Global, with regional domains including Europe and North America
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Medium-Range · Research
Access: Free, public (scientific use disclaimer)
SILAM (System for Integrated modeLling of Atmospheric coMposition) is an Eulerian atmospheric dispersion model developed at the Finnish Meteorological Institute that produces air quality, fire smoke, and pollen forecasts using wildland fire emission inputs from the IS4FIRES system along with anthropogenic emissions, and provides outputs including surface concentrations and depositions of PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2, and aerosol optical depth across multiple regional and global domains. The system is available as open-code for research applications and offers multi-height outputs and multi-species coverage rarely combined in a single publicly accessible viewer. For European and global fire and air quality researchers, SILAM provides a scientifically robust independent cross-check against operational forecast systems such as CAMS.
Simple Smoke
Operator: Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) / Florida Forest Service
Geographic Focus: Florida (primary), with broader U.S. applicability
Tags: Smoke · Prescribed Fire · Model Output · Point Forecast · Operational · Decision Support
Access: Free, public
Simple Smoke is a streamlined, web-based smoke dispersion planning tool developed by the Florida Forest Service to help prescribed burn practitioners rapidly estimate downwind smoke impacts from planned burns. Like VSmoke-Web, it uses simplified Gaussian dispersion principles but is tailored to Florida's regulatory environment and common fuel types, outputting PM2.5 and visibility estimates tied to AQI categories. The tool lowers the technical barrier for smoke management planning and supports compliance with Florida's smoke management permitting requirements, making it a key operational resource for the state's large prescribed fire community.
PREV'AIR – French Air Quality Forecast System
Operator: INERIS (National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks), in consortium with Météo-France and LCSQA; funded by the French Ministry of Ecology
Geographic Focus: France and Europe
Tags: Smoke · Forecast · Model Output · Map · Short-Range · Archive · French
Access: Free, public (PREV'AIR+ extended data with registration)
PREV'AIR is the French national air quality forecasting system providing forecasts of PM2.5, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide concentrations across France and Europe, alongside air quality health bulletins, regulatory context, historical data archives, and public guidance on pollutant health effects and protective measures. The system couples several atmospheric chemistry models with emission inventories and meteorological inputs to produce daily forecast maps and assessments, which are used by French air quality monitoring associations (AASQAs) and health authorities for issuing alerts. During southern European wildfire seasons, PREV'AIR is a key reference for tracking smoke plume impacts on French air quality, particularly from fires in the Mediterranean basin, Iberian Peninsula, and North Africa.
VSmoke-Web
Operator: Georgia Forestry Commission (GFC) / USDA Forest Service (VSmoke model, Lavdas 1996)
Geographic Focus: United States, primarily the Southeast
Tags: Smoke · Prescribed Fire · Model Output · Point Forecast · Operational · Decision Support
Access: Free, public
URL: https://weather.gfc.state.ga.us/GoogleVsmoke/vsmoke-Good2.html
VSmoke-Web is a web-based implementation of the VSmoke Gaussian smoke dispersion model designed to assist with planning prescribed burns in the Southern United States, calculating isopleths of peak hourly PM2.5 surface concentrations with output contour values corresponding to AQI health thresholds from Moderate to Hazardous. Users simply click a location on the map or enter coordinates, then specify fire and meteorological parameters to generate a rapid dispersion estimate requiring no specialist modelling software. Its simplicity makes it particularly well suited for land managers and prescribed burn practitioners in the Southeast who need a fast, low-barrier smoke impact screening tool before submitting burn permit applications or conducting operations near populated areas.