The Need for Smoke Management

In the past, smoke from prescribed burning was managed primarily to avoid nuisance conditions objectionable to the public or to avoid traffic hazards caused by smoke drift across roadways. While these objectives are still valid, today’s smoke management programs are also likely to be driven, in part, by local, regional and federal air quality regulations. These new demands on smoke management programs have emerged as a result of Federal Clean Air Act requirements that include standards for regulation of regional haze and the recent revisions to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) on particulate matter. Development of the additional requirements coincides with renewed efforts to increase use of fire to restore forest ecosystem health. These two requirements are interrelated:

• The purity of the air we breathe is essential to our health and quality of our lives and smoke from wildland and prescribed can have adverse effects on public health.
• The national forests, national parks and  wilderness areas set aside by Congress are among the nation’s greatest treasures.  They inspire us as individuals and as a nation. Smoke from wildland burning can obscure these natural wonders.
• Although smoke may be an inconvenience under the best conditions and a public health and safety risk under the worst conditions, without periodic fires, the natural habitat that society holds in such high esteem will decline and ultimately disappear. In addition, as ecosystem health declines, fuel increases to levels that also pose significant risks for wildfire and consequently additional safety risks.
• Wildland and prescribed fire managers are entrusted with balancing these and other, often potentially conflicting responsibilities. Fire managers are charged with the task of increasing the use of fire to accomplish important land stewardship objectives and, at the same time, are entrusted to protect public safety and health.

Purpose of a Smoke Management Program

The purpose of a smoke management program is to:

• minimize the amount of smoke entering populated areas, preventing public health and safety hazards (e.g. visual impairment on roadways or runways) and problems at sensitive sites (e.g. nursing homes or hospitals),
• avoid significant deterioration of air quality and NAAQS violations, and
• eliminate human-caused visibility impacts in Class I areas.

Smoke management programs create a framework of procedures and requirements for managing smoke from prescribed fires and are typically developed by States or tribes with cooperation and participation from stakeholders. Procedures and requirements developed through partnerships are more effective at meeting resource management goals, protecting public health, and achieving air quality objectives than programs that are created in isolation. Sophisticated programs for coordination of burning both within a state and across state boundaries are vital to obtain and maintain public support of burning programs. Fire use professionals are increasingly encouraged to burn at a landscape level. In some cases, when objectives are based in both ecology and fuel reduction, there is a need to consider burning during challenging times of the year (e.g. during the growing season rather than the cooler dormant season). Multiple objectives for fire use are likely to increase the challenges, consequently increasing the value of partnerships for smoke management.

Smoke management is increasingly recognized as a critical component of a state or tribal air quality program for protecting public health and welfare while still providing for necessary wildland burning.

Usually, either a state or tribal natural resources agency or air quality agency is responsible for developing and administering the smoke management program. Occasionally a smoke management program may be administered by a local agency. California, for example, relies on local area smoke management programs. Generally, on a daily basis the administering agency approves or denies permits for individual burns or burns meeting some criteria. Permits may be required for all fires or only for those that exceed an established de minimis level (which could be based on projections of acres burned, tons consumed, or emissions). Multi-day burns may be subject to daily reassessment and re-approval to ensure compliance with smoke management program goals.

Advanced smoke management programs evaluate individual and multiple burns; coordinate all prescribed fire activities in an area; consider cross-boundary (landscape) impacts; and weigh decisions about fires against possible health, visibility, and nuisance effects. With increasing use of fire for forest health and ecosystem management, interstate and interregional coordination of burning will be necessary to prevent episodes of poor air quality. Development of, and participation in, an effective smoke management program by state agents and land managers will go a long way towards building and maintaining public acceptance of prescribed burning.

The Need for Smoke Management Programs

The call for increasingly effective smoke management programs has occurred because of public and governmental concerns about the possible risks to public health and safety, as well as nuisance and regional haze impacts of smoke from wildland and prescribed fires. There are also concerns about contributions to health-related National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Each of these areas is summarized below.

Public Health Protection: Fine Particle National Ambient Air Quality Standards

EPA’s most recent review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter (PM10) concluded that significant changes were needed to assure the protection of public health. In July of 1997, following an extensive review of the global literature, EPA adopted a fine particle (PM2.5) standard.

These small particles are largely responsible for the health effects of greatest concern and for visibility reduction in the form of regional haze.

The close link between regional haze and the new fine particle National Ambient Air Quality Standards means that smoke from prescribed fire is again at the center of attention for air regulators charged with adopting control strategies to attain the new standards.

Public Safety and Nuisance Issues

Perhaps the most immediate need for an effective smoke management program is related to smoke drifting across roadways and restricting motorist visibility. Each year, people are killed on the nation’s highways because of dust storms, smoke and fog. Wildland and prescribed fire managers must recognize the legal issues related to their professional activities. Special care must be taken in administering the smoke management program to assure that smoke does not obscure roadway or airport visibility. Liability issues vary by state. Some states such as Florida have “right-to-burn” laws that provide some protection for fire use professionals with specific training and certification.

Probably the most common air quality issues facing wildland and prescribed fire managers are those related to public complaints about nuisance smoke. Complaints may be about the odor or soiling effects of smoke, poor visibility, and impaired ability to breathe or other health-related effects. Sometimes complaints come from the fact that some people don’t like or are fearful of smoke intruding into their lives. Whatever the reason, fire managers have a responsibility to try to prevent or resolve the issue through smoke management plans that recognize the importance of proper selection of management and burning techniques and burn scheduling based on meteorological conditions. In addition, community public relations and education coupled with pre-burn notification can greatly improve public acceptance of fire management programs.

Visibility Protection

Haze that obstructs the scenic beauty of the Nation’s wildlands and national parks does not respect political boundaries. Any program that is intended to reduce visibility impairment in the nation’s parks and wildlands must be based on multi-state cooperative efforts or on national legislation.

In 1999, the U.S. EPA issued regional haze regulations to manage and mitigate visibility impairment from the multitude of regional haze sources. Regional haze regulations call for states to establish goals for improving visibility in Class I national parks and wildernesses and to develop long-term strategies for reducing emissions of air pollutants that cause visibility impairment. Wildland and prescribed fire are some of the sources of regional haze covered by the new rules.

Past Success and Commitment to Future Efforts

Conflicts among natural resource needs, fire management, and air quality issues are expected to increase. It is equally important to acknowledge the benefits to air quality resulting from the many successful smoke management efforts in the past two decades.  Since the 1980s, federal, state, tribal, and local land managers have recognized the potential impacts of smoke emissions from their activities. Additionally, they have sponsored and pursued new efforts to learn the principles of smoke management and to develop appropriate smoke management applications. Many early smoke management successes resulted from proactive, voluntary inclusion of smoke management components in many burn plans as early as the mid-1980s.