Using the BlueSky Smoke Modeling Framework in Decision Support for Landscape-scale Prescribed Burn Operations

A landscape-level prescribed burn project was undertaken during the spring of 2007 on the Naches Ranger District of the Wenatchee National Forest in central Washington state. The primary goal of the project was to demonstrate the feasibility of burning large units encompassing thousands of acres over multiple days, without generating unhealthful concentrations of PM2.5 in sensitive locations, including the city of Yakima, WA. In support of this project, the BlueSky Smoke Modeling Framework was modified to incorporate several different “scenarios” to simulate the burns. Multiple solutions were generated by running the model with varying inputs, including different burn sizes (acres burned), fuel loadings, burn durations, and numbers of plumes. These scenarios were run each night and the outputs were compared with each other, and with the output from the daily production run, to get a range of possible smoke impacts from the burns. The AirFire Team also deployed PM2.5 monitors in sensitive areas downwind of the burn locations to determine the smoke impacts from the fires in real-time. Results from these scenario model runs will be presented, along with implications for the use of BlueSky as a decision support tool in prescribed burning operations.