The new smoke management

Abstract

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 (PM_2.5), tropospheric ozone, and regional haze in the next few years. These three air quality issues relate directly to forest and agriculture burning. Fire generates PM_2.5 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.