Kevin Cromar Participates in Webinar Showcasing

Director of Health, Environment, and Policy, Kevin Cromar, co-hosted a multi-agency webinar organized by the World Meteorological Organization’s Vegetation Fire Smoke Pollution Warning Advisory and Assessment System (VFSP-WAS) North America Center, in partnership with NASA’s Wildland Fire Program, the University of Texas at Arlington, and George Mason University. The event introduced upgraded wildfire smoke forecast products designed to support health-relevant applications.

The webinar brought together more than one hundred participants from a wide range of backgrounds, including government agencies, academic researchers, international organizations, and private-sector stakeholders. Presentations highlighted advances in the Hazardous Air Quality Ensemble System (HAQES), which integrates forecasts from multiple US and Canadian agencies to generate consensus smoke predictions and probabilities of extreme PM_2.5 events.

This work is part of ongoing NASA-funded research aimed at improving the accuracy and usability of smoke forecasting during wildfire events. Speakers emphasized how enhanced smoke forecasts can strengthen early warning systems and health risk communication. The discussion underscored the importance of cross-agency collaboration and operational forecasting tools in addressing the growing public health challenges associated with wildfire smoke.