- Title:
-
Managing Smoke from Wildfires and Prescribed Burning in Southern Australia
- Date:
- October 2008
- Organisations
- USDA
- Authors:
- Alan Wain, Graham Mills, Lachlan McCaw and Timothy Brown
-
Location:
-
USA,
United States of America
Overview
The interaction between smoke and air pollution creates a public health
challenge. Fuels treatments proposed for National Forests are
intended to reduce fuel accumulations and wildfire frequency and
severity, as well as to protect property located in the wild land-urban
interface. However, prescribed fires produce gases and aerosols that
have instantaneous and long-term effects on air quality. If fuels
treatment are not conducted, however, then wild land fires become more
severe and frequent causing worse public health and wellfare effects.
A better understanding of air pollution and smoke interactions is needed in order to protect the public health and allow for socially
and ecologically acceptable use of fire as a management tool. This text
offers such an understanding and examines innovative wide-scale
monitoring efforts (field and remotely sensed), and development of
models predicting spatial and temporal distribution of air pollution
and smoke resulting from forests fires and other sources.
