Volume 66 • No. 3 • Summer 2006 Smoke Issues and Air Quality Also: Our Response to Hurricane Katrina 1 Coming Next… The next issue of Fire Management Today (Fall 2006) will feature a series of articles that describe and probe the challenges and opportunities associ- ated with both elements of “fire use”—prescribed fire and wildland fire use. The issue’s special coordinator is Tim Sexton, fire use program manager for the USDA Forest Service, Fire and Aviation Management, Washington Office, National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, ID. Fire Management Today is published by the Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC. The Secretary of Agriculture has determined that the publication of this periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of this Department. 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Individual authors are responsible for the technical accuracy of the material presented in Fire Management Today. 2 Volume 66 • No. 3 • Summer 2006 On the Cover: CONTENTS Where There Is Fire There Is Smoke ............................................4 Pete Lahm Applying BlueSky Smoke Modeling Framework on Wildland Fires ....5 Louisa Evers, Sue Ferguson, Susan O’Neill, and Jeanne Hoadley BlueSky Proves Its Value in Predicting Smoke ..............................9 Louisa Evers Smoke, Fire, and Weather: What Forest Service Research Is Doing To Help ......................................................................12 Brian E. Potter, Narasimhan K. Larkin, and Ned Nikolov Left: Smoky haze shrouding the sun over the Bitterroot Smoke-Monitoring Equipment and Applications ...........................17 Andy Trent and Ricardo Cisneros River following the 2003 fire bust in the mountains around SPOTS: Maximizing Fuel and Vegetation Management Effectiveness ..........................................................................22 Missoula, MT. Photo: Kristen Sue Stewart Honig, Los Alamos, NM, 2003. Bottom Right: Sun in smoke A Review of Smoke Management and Emission Estimation Tools ..27 Pete Lahm from the 2006 Ward Lake Fire, Quachita National Forest. Responding in Force to Hurricane Katrina ..................................34 Photo: Nate Bell, Potter Rural Learning From the IMT Assigned to the Fire Department, Mena, AR. New Orleans Airport .....................................................35 Top Right: Smoke column George Custer rises up from the 2004 Nuttall- Hurricane Katrina Incident: Areas of Concern and Gibson Complex, Coronado Recommendations .........................................................38 George Custer National Forest. Photo: Jayson Coil, Flagstaff, AZ. True Story: A Firsthand Experience With Hurricane Katrina’s Aftermath ......................................................43 Betsy Haynes For more on the air quality issues raised by smoke from Pitfalls in the Silvicultural Treatment of Canopy Fuels .................48 Christopher R. Keyes and J. Morgan Varner wildfires and fire use, see the articles beginning on page 4. Changing Beliefs and Building Trust at the Wildland/Urban Interface .........................................................51 The USDA Forest Service’s Fire and Aviation Jeremy S. Fried, Demetrios Gatziolis, J. Keith Gilless, Management Staff has adopted a logo reflect- Christine A. Vogt, and Greg Winter ing three central principles of wildland fire management: Franklin Awards Salute Achievements in Cooperative • Innovation: We will respect and value thinking minds, voices, and thoughts of Fire Protection ......................................................................55 those that challenge the status quo while Melissa Frey focusing on the greater good. • Execution: We will do what we say we will SHORT FEATURES do. Achieving program objectives, improv- ing diversity, and accomplishing targets are Southwestern Ponderosa Pine: Ceanothus, Wasps, and Fire ........ 58 essential to our credibility. Hutch Brown • Discipline: What we do, we will do well. Fiscal, managerial, and operational discipline All Our Past Issues Now Available on the Web ...........................59 are at the core of our ability to fulfill our mission. Guidelines for Contributors .......................................................60 Websites on Fire .....................................................................61 New Photo Contest Procedures ................................................61 Firefighter and public safety is our first priority. Volume 66 • No. 3 • Summer 2006 3 WHERE THERE IS FIRE THERE IS SMOKE Pete Lahm his issue of Fire Management Better Tools and Through the expanding array of Today highlights the expanding Approaches modeling tools, these emissions esti- T science of smoke issues and air Better tools and approaches to mates can then be used to support quality. From the discussion of Web- address fuels management and better smoke management deci- based tools that predict how much understand the state of fuels sions, both on the ground and for smoke might come from that fire on the landscape are now being planning purposes. The integration and where it might go, to the grow- developed for fire managers. They of smoke management and how air ing array of monitoring equipment are being fashioned with an eye quality can be incorporated into the to measure the concentration of toward how smoke emissions planning of vegetation treatments smoke on the ground in real time, will be calculated and how fire can also be found in the rapidly the technology available to fire man- management’s potential smoke developing Strategic Placement of agers today to support better smoke impacts can be demonstrated. Treatments (SPOTS) projects, also management decisions is vastly dif- discussed in the following pages. The clear recognition of the state of ferent than just a few years ago. wildland fuels and the undertaking of addressing this reality through The integration of smoke manage- Combined Science: increased vegetation management ment into fire management deci- Fire and Smoke efforts is fully underway. On a sions has never been greater. A There is an increasing awareness national scale, prescribed fire and land manager can now support a of both the unprecedented air wildland fire use are two approach- decision to ignite a prescribed fire quality effects of wildfire on air es that are dramatically increasing with better knowledge of potential quality health standards and the to address the fuels crisis. smoke impacts based on the USDA efforts to mitigate—where pos- Forest Service Research’s BlueSky- sible—these smoke impacts. The The amount of smoke is increasing RAINS model—explained in detail need to increase the use of pre- in the environment—whether from beginning on page 12. scribed fire in many areas across the large wildfire with catastrophic the country—as well as to further effects in the wildland/urban inter- A public information officer from utilize wildland fire—reinforces face, the managed wildland fire use an air regulatory or land manage- the need for future growth in the incident, or the ignited prescribed ment agency—through the use of smoke management arena. fire. An example of this integration increasingly portable air quality monitoring devices—can more fre- As we reintroduce fire into natural quently be found providing infor- The integration of smoke ecosystems, our technical tools mation about the measured levels will need to be further improved of pollutants to a community management into fire and new approaches developed to inundated by smoke. In addition, management decisions has balance the protection of air qual- the interagency linkages between never been greater. ity and its human health benefits, land managers and the air qual- as well as to address the current ity regulatory community are also fuels crisis within the wildlands of