Date Time Where There’s Smoke: Reducing Downwind Impacts of Wildland Fire Management To thrive, southern Appalachian forests need fire. The region’s iconic Table Mountain pines, for example, can’t release their seeds without it. Wildfires, though, pose risks to people and property, especially where communities neighbor wildlands, and so natural resource managers strategically apply prescribed burns to maintain landscape health while reducing fire risks. New research at North Carolina State University led by Geospatial Analytics Ph.D. student Kate Jones will use geospatial modeling and interactive data visualization to help ensure that decision-making about prescribed burns also considers the vulnerability of communities to smoke downwind.