Southern Research Station Headquarters - Asheville, NC
![[Images] Five photos of different landscape](/images/imstr1.jpg "[Images] Five photos of different landscape")
Issue 14
Where There’s Prescribed Fire, There’s Smoke
by Stevin Westcott
Whether ignited by humans or naturally, fire has been a component of southern forest ecosystems for centuries. As more and more people migrate to the South, state and Federal foresters, natural resource managers, local leaders, and others face the challenge of how to reduce the loss of life, damage to property, and other adverse effects of fire on humans and, at the same time, maintain the benefits of fire in forests.
Fire promotes the health of forest ecosystems in a number of ways, but fire can also pose problems for urban and suburban areas. For example, smoke produced from fires reduces air quality and impacts human health. It also reduces visibility, which compromises ground and air transportation.
SRS meteorologist Scott Goodrick is leading a team of researchers who are working to help the South’s foresters, health officials, and others better deal with the effects of smoke generated by wildfires and prescribed burns. Goodrick, whose atmospheric sciences team is part of the SRS Center for Forest Disturbance Science in Athens, GA, are using Google Earth computer software to display smoke model forecasts that can help southern communities determine the potential health risks caused by wildfires. These forecasts are useful for state and local health departments when deciding to issue warnings for people most affected by smoke, such as those with lung disease or asthma.
The forecasts combine smoke concentrations over a 3-day period with weather forecasts to predict the amount of smoke that will be produced and where the smoke will spread. The forecasts focus on particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter, which is associated with respiratory problems and measured by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
“Our goal is to post all of our modeling tools on the Internet for use by states and localities,” says Goodrick. “At this stage, we’re focused on perfecting how fire is represented in the models. A lot of air quality modeling has centered on industrial emissions. Forest fire is much different in terms of how it is dispersed in the atmosphere. So we’re trying to fine tune how smoke behaves in our models through field work and other enhancements.”
These new and improved smoke models will benefit foresters and other natural resource managers in the South who conduct prescribed burns to reduce heavy fuel loads that could cause catastrophic wildfires. Practitioners of prescribed burning also face tighter EPA standards, making the SRS models even more beneficial.
“In 2007, there were some prescribed burns in the South that exceeded EPA standards for a couple days,” said Goodrick. “Prescribed fire is necessary, but the biggest challenge is to mitigate the adverse effects of smoke as much as possible. You have to decide whether you want a little smoke now from a prescribed fire or a lot later on from a wildfire.”
Forecasts can be accessed online at shrmc.ggy.uga.edu/ge/.
For more information:
Scott Goodrick at 706–559–4237 or sgoodrick@fs.fed.us
