Allen R. Riebau

The new smoke management

This paper was presented at the conference ‘Integrating spatial technologies and ecological principles for a new age in fire management’, Boise, Idaho, USA, June 1999 The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will implement new regulations for the management of atmospheric particulate matter 2.5 µm and less in diameter (PM2.5), tropospheric ozone, and regional haze in the next few years. These three air quality issues relate directly to forest and agriculture burning. Fire generates PM2.5 and ozone precursor gases that reduce visibility. Hence, wild and agricultural land managers will be subject to these air quality regulations much as industrial and mobile sources have been for the past 25 years. In addition, these new regulations come at a time when private as well as public land managers throughout the United States are developing plans to increase their application of fire as a management tool. Prescribed fire will remain viable as a tool for land managers with these new regulations but only under a responsible smoke management paradigm. This paradigm will include formal ‘state-approved’ Smoke Management Programs and will require the use of new and ‘approved’ technologies that have been subjected to public and stakeholder scrutiny as regulatory tools. These programs will acknowledge that wildland fire is different from conventional human-caused air pollution sources. They will recognize that the managed use of fire is a superior option to wildfire from public safety and health perspectives. But they will also require greater utilization of non-burning alternatives in all circumstances, especially where fire is used for economic rather than ecological reasons. Through better smoke management and greater use of non-burning alternatives, steadily reduced smoke emissions will likely result.

Damage Assessment of Agrometeorological Relevance from Natural Disasters: Economic and Social Consequences

Damage from catastrophic events is both social and economic. Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of modern life is our increasing ability to communicate, especially in the developed countries. This communication has brought an increased sense of connectedness but also made people more aware of the occurrence and consequences of natural disasters. In this paper we explore the potential for changes in frequency and magnitude of weather-related natural disasters and some of their connections to climate change and variability. Although changes in climate may have great consequence, increasing climate variability may become the most immediate challenge for world society. Both observations and simulation models show that as the potential for climate variability increases, natural disasters have become more frequent and of deeper economic impact. In areas of the world where these devastating events appear to occur and then quickly reoccur in a different guise, the sharing of information and resources becomes a pivotal issue for collective security. New technologies can help us understand these events and prepare for them. New social institutions may also be needed to cope with these issues on a global scale.

A Review of Wildland Fire and Air Quality Management

This chapter reviews relationships between wildfire fire and air quality management in the US. Smoke fire emissions contribute to fine particulate concentrations for which there is a national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) and to regional haze. The status of US regulatory programs for NAAQS and for regional haze are briefly reviewed along with the estimated contribution made by fire to each of these. We suggest that fire emissions can be best managed using emissions management systems adapted to smoke management and recommend that fire management agencies formally adopt such tools.

Global pollution aerosol monitoring (GPAM) in the atmospheric boundary layer using future earth observing satellite remote sensing

Global pollution aerosol monitoring is a very important climatic and environmental problem. It affects not only human health but also ecological systems. Because most pollution aerosols are concentrated in the atmospheric boundary layer where human, animal and vegetation live, global pollution aerosol stuides have been an important topic since about a decade ago. Recently, many new chemistry remote sensing satellite systems, such as NASAs Aura (EOS-CHEM), have been established. However, pollution aerosols in the atmospheric boundary layer cannot be detected using current remote sensing technologies. George Mason University (GMU) proposes to design scientific algorithms and technologies to monitor the atmospheric boundary layer pollution aerosols, using both satellite remote sensing measurements and ground measurements, collaborating with NASA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Forest Services (FS). Boundary layer pollution aerosols result from industrial pollution, desert dust storms, smoke from wildfires and biomass burning, volcanic eruptions, and from other trace gases. The current and next generation satellite instruments, such as The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES), and High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS) can be used for this study. Some surface measurements from USDA/FS and other agencies may also be used in this study. We will discuss critical issues for GPAM in the boundary layer using Earth observing satellite remote sensing in detail in this paper.

Chapter 26 Integrating Research on Wildland Fires and Air Quality: Needs and Recommendations

Abstract A summary is presented that integrates general information on the causes and effects of wildland fires and emissions with various ecological impacts of forest fires and air pollution in forests and other ecosystems. We also synthesize information on the regional effects of wildland fires on ambient air quality in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia, and how this may impact visibility and human health and security. In addition, advances in remote sensing (RS), modeling, and management of wildland fires and the resulting air pollution are summarized. We also provide information for researchers and managers on the most important needs and recommendations about the interactions of wildland fires and air pollution that have been discussed in this book.

Managing Smoke in United States Wildlands and Forests: A Challenge for Science and Regulations

In past decades the Forest Service and other land management agencies in the United States developed the image in the national popular imagination of forest fires being unnatural occurrences fraught with danger and personal loss. These policies, which were designed to save forests from fire, especially commercially valued forests and associated private property, have now left many ecosystems with fuel loadings that can easily result in large conflagrations unless these loadings are carefully and methodically removed by controlled burns.