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144284 
Journal Article 
Air pollutant emissions associated with forest, grassland, and agricultural burning in Texas 
Dennis, A; Fraser, M; Anderson, S; Allen, D 
2002 
Atmospheric Environment
ISSN: 1352-2310
EISSN: 1873-2844 
36 
23 
3779-3792 
Outdoor fires, such as wildfires and prescribed burns, can emit substantial amounts of particulate matter and other pollutants into the atmosphere. In Texas, an inventory of forest, grassland and agricultural burning activities revealed that fires consumed vegetation on 1.6 and 1.7 million acres of land, in 1996 and 1997, respectively. Emissions from the fires were estimated, based on survey and field data on acres, burned and land cover and literature data on fuel consumption and emission factors. Fire data were allocated spatially by county and temporally by month. While fire events can cause high transient air pollutant concentrations, for most criteria pollutants, the fire emissions were a relatively small fraction of the annual emission inventory for the State. For fine particulate matter, however, the annual emission estimates were 40,000 tons/yr, which is likely to represent a significant fraction of the State's emission inventory, especially in the counties where the emissions are concentrated. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 
fire; Texas; emission inventory; land cover; particulate matter; criteria pollutants