Acronyms & Terms
A quick reference for abbreviations, agencies, datasets, models, meteorology, and map formats used across FEAST. Use the sidebar to jump between categories or the search box to filter terms instantly.
- FEAST
- Fire & Exceptional Event Assessment, Screening, and Toolkit — a CARB–DRI collaboration that provides tools connecting prescribed fire, wildfire, and air quality data.
- CARB
- California Air Resources Board — California’s state air quality agency.
- DRI
- Desert Research Institute — research partner supporting CANSAC/WRF forecasts and BlueSky operations.
- CAL FIRE
- California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — supports wildfire response and provides fire-related datasets, including FRAP data.
- EPA
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — federal agency responsible for NAAQS, design values, and the AQS program.
- NOAA
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — provides GOES satellite products and HMS fire and smoke information through OSPO.
- USFS
- U.S. Forest Service — federal partner in fire management and BlueSky-related smoke modeling efforts.
- PM2.5
- Particulate matter ≤ 2.5 µm; measured as daily (24-hour) concentrations and annual means; used for design values and exceedance screening.
- PM10
- Particulate matter ≤ 10 µm; less central to FEAST but may appear in datasets.
- O3 (Ozone)
- 8-hour maximum ozone concentration (ppb); compared to EPA standard (70 ppb).
- DV (Design Value)
- Multi-year statistic determining attainment (PM2.5 annual/24-hour; O3 8-hour).
- NAAQS
- National Ambient Air Quality Standards — EPA limits for criteria pollutants.
- AQI
- Air Quality Index — public communication scale; separate from design values.
- Exceedance
- Daily concentration at/above the standard threshold (e.g., PM2.5 ≥ 35 µg/m³; O3 ≥ 70 ppb).
- Completeness
- EPA data completeness rules for including data in DV calculations.
- PFIRS
- Prescribed Fire Information Reporting System — CARB’s prescribed fire reporting system. It provides information on planned burns, including burn type, acreage, location, and ignition dates.
- FRAP
- Fire and Resource Assessment Program — CAL FIRE program that provides fire-related datasets, including wildfire perimeters and fire history information.
- HMS
- Hazard Mapping System — NOAA/OSPO product that provides analyst-reviewed fire detections and smoke plume boundaries. FEAST filters and displays relevant HMS data for California.
- Center of Wildfire
- A point location used to represent the approximate center, ignition location, or centroid of a wildfire incident.
- Wildfire Boundary
- A perimeter polygon showing the approximate burned area of a wildfire incident. These boundaries are commonly available for historical or larger incidents.
- CANSAC
- California and Nevada Smoke and Air Committee — provides ~1.3 km WRF forecasts (00/12 UTC) for CA/NV.
- WRF
- Weather Research and Forecasting model — numerical weather prediction used by CANSAC.
- BlueSky
- Smoke modeling system (DRI/partners) using fire emissions + meteorology to predict dispersion/PM2.5.
- GOES
- Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite — 6-minute true-color and fire-temperature imagery.
- PBL
- Planetary Boundary Layer — lower atmosphere controlling dispersion and ventilation.
- Ventilation Index
- Indicator of smoke dispersion potential (mixing height × wind speed or similar composite).
- Back-trajectory
- Air parcel path traced backward (e.g., 24 hours) to infer upwind sources; FEAST releases at 100/150/200 m AGL using CANSAC winds.
- AirNow
- Near-real-time PM2.5 and O3 observations from U.S. EPA and partner agencies; FEAST uses California subsets for situational awareness.
- AQMIS
- Near-real-time PM2.5 and O3 monitoring data from CARB; FEAST uses California subsets for screening, review, and situational awareness.
- AQS
- Air Quality System (EPA) — certified regulatory repository used for design values and compliance.
- PurpleAir
- Community PM2.5 sensors; FEAST uses QA/QC-filtered and corrected data for dense spatial coverage.
- OSPO
- NOAA Office of Satellite and Product Operations — hosts HMS products.
- FAA
- Federal Aviation Administration — airport surface meteorology (winds, visibility, temp, RH).
- RAWS
- Remote Automatic Weather Stations — fire weather and fuel condition observations.
- CIMIS
- California Irrigation Management Information System — surface meteorology over CA.
- AIRS
- Aerometric Information Retrieval System — context used for met/air data in FEAST content.
- NDBC
- National Data Buoy Center (“Buoy” network) — coastal and marine meteorology.
- Shapefile
- Common GIS vector format (Esri) for points/lines/polygons.
- GeoJSON
- JSON-based vector format for web maps; easy to consume via APIs.
- Raster Tile / XYZ
- Web map imagery served as tiled rasters (z/x/y) for fast display.
- WMS / WMTS
- OGC web map services (static images / tiled imagery) for interoperable map layers.
- Vector Tile
- Tiled vector data rendered on the client for high-performance cartography.
- UTC
- Coordinated Universal Time — CANSAC/WRF are initialized at 00 & 12 UTC.
- AGL
- Above Ground Level — trajectory release heights (e.g., 100 / 150 / 200 m AGL).
- µg/m³
- Micrograms per cubic meter — PM2.5 concentration unit.
- ppb
- Parts per billion — O3 concentration unit.
- EE (Exceptional Event)
- Unusual/natural occurrence (e.g., wildfire smoke) that may justify excluding data from regulatory decisions if demonstrated.
- QA/QC
- Quality Assurance/Control — includes clustering-based filtering and simplified RH-independent sensor corrections for PurpleAir.
- RH
- Relative Humidity — sometimes excluded in corrections due to unreliable readings during smoke events.
- Template Generator
- FEAST tool that auto-builds Word templates (figures, tables, DV calculations) for EE demos based on user inputs.
- Design Value Estimator
- FEAST tool to test the influence of high-pollution days on DVs (PM2.5, O3).
- Daily Exceedance Reports
- FEAST feature that flags daily PM2.5/O3 exceedances and provides preliminary spatial/temporal context.