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Smoke Management and Basic Smoke Management Practices

  • NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire: Information on prescribed fire smoke management techniques, regulations, monitoring, modeling, communication, perception and meteorology. Serve as the textbook in support of NWCG’s Smoke Management Techniques (RX-410) course. Hard copies of this publication are now available through the National Wildfire Coordinating Group.
     
  • Prescribed Fire Smoke Management Pocket Guide: A pocket guide created by the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils and SERPPAS which includes rules, checklists, and other resources to serve as a job aid for those needing to recall the rules and guidelines associated with proper prescribed smoke management practices and planned burns.
     
  • Basic smoke management practices for prescribed burning: This fact sheet briefly summarizes many of the key elements in the USFS-NRCS Basic Smoke Management Practices guide. The USFS-NRCS guidance summarized by this resource is available in the FRAMES Catalog, record 20307.
     
  • Managing smoke at the wildland-urban interface: This guide describes modifications to the Southern Smoke Screening System for burns at the Wildland Urban Interface. 
     

Smoke Exposure and Roadway Safety

  • Smoke and Roadway Safety Guide: Guidebook in support of the National Wildland Fire Coordinating Group’s video 'Smoke, Roads, and Safety', providing tools and methods to effectively roadway smoke impacts.
     
  • WFSTAR: Smoke - Knowing the Risks: A 13 minute Refresher on the smoke risks that wildland fire personnel should be aware of.
     
  • Protecting Wildfire Personnel from Smoke - How Incident Management Teams Address Smoke Risks: Smoke is a risk faced by wildland firefighters and personnel with both short and long-term health impacts. Safety Officers, Logistics Section Chiefs, Medical Unit Leaders and Air Resource Advisors can work individually and together as part of the Incident Management Team to reduce the health and safety risks associated with smoke exposure and impaired visibility on roadways. With proper planning and collaboration, smoke exposure can be reduced and mitigated. A foundational video, Smoke-Knowing the Risk should be viewed prior to this video. This video will support Incident Commanders and Agency Administrators with needed knowledge on responsibilities and efforts to improve the health and safety of their wildland fire personnel. This Performance Support Module provides information on:
    • How to recognize and avoid smoke risks to personnel health and safety.
    • Safety, Logistics, Medical and Air Resource Advisor tools and roles in addressing smoke exposure risks to personnel.
    • Understand IMT positions that can play a role in mitigating personnel smoke exposure and safety risks.
       
  • DRAFT Wildland Fire Personnel Smoke Exposure Guidebook (March 2016): This guide covers situations in both wild and prescribed fires and is a more detailed supporting document for the National Wildland Fire Coordinating Group’s video ‘Smoke: Knowing the Risks’.
     

Public Health and Outreach 

  • Smoke Ready Toolbox for Wildfires: Public health officials can use the resources in the Smoke Ready Toolbox to help educate the public about the risks of smoke exposure and actions people can take to protect their health.
     
  • Wildfire Smoke: A Guide for Public Health Officials - EPA 2012 Revision: This guide is designed to help local public health officials prepare for smoke events, to take measures to protect the public when smoke is present, and communicate with the public about wildfire smoke and health.
     
  • Fact Sheet for Fire Managers: Wildland Fire Smoke Effects on Public Health What Does the Research Say: A short fact sheet from the Southern Fire Exchange summarizing the latest research on smoke effects on public health.
     
  • AirNow, Air Quality Index: The Air Quality Index (AQI) tells you how clean or polluted your outdoor air is, along with associated health effects that may be of concern. The AQI translates air quality data into numbers and colors that help people understand when to take action to protect their health.
     
  • Fire and Smoke Map: An online map which combines data from EPA’s air monitoring network with data from low-cost sensors, to improve air quality and smoke information available to the public during fire events.
     
  • Smoke Blogs: This page links to real time smoke blogs coordinated and maintained by various states and agencies to aggregate smoke and air quality information.
     

Modeling Tools

  • Smoke Tools and Information for Use During Wildfires: A video presentation from Susan O'Neill (Air Fire Team) outlining smoke tools and information for use on wildfires (43 minutes).
  • AirFire Tools.org: Main portal to access the web-based smoke planning and monitoring tools developed by AirFire such as BlueSky Playground, Monitoring PM2.5, and others. Each tool is listed along with a 'More Info' link that provides help pages, user information, and more.
  • Fuel and Fire Tools (FFT): Downloadable application for assessing fuel loading, fuel consumption, and emissions production, it contains the Fuel Characteristics Classification System, Consume, FEPS, Pile Calculator, and Digital Photo Series in a single user interface.
  • First Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM): Downloadable application for predicting tree mortality, fuel consumption, smoke production, and soil heating caused by prescribed fire or wildfire.
     

Using Satellite Data