84th AMS Annual Meeting

Monday, 12 January 2004
In Situ Air Quality Monitoring of Smoke from Prescribed Burns of Boreal Forest in the Mountains of Banff National Park, Alberta Canada
Hall 4AB
Brian J. Wiens, EC, Edmonton, AB, Canada; and S. Durocher, P. Kyle, and M. Heathcott
Poster PDF (1.7 MB)
Prescribed burns were conducted in May and June 2003 in Banff National Park as part of a fire management and ecosystem renewal plan. The area to be burned was on the front ranges of the rocky mountains with up to 10,000 hectares planned in an area where no significant burning had occurred since 1923. The burns included a variety of fuel mixes (primarily coniferous) with varying slopes and exposures and also some areas with Mountain Pine beetle infestation. On five days, portable particulate samplers (MiniVols) were deployed at one or two locations per day, prior to ignition, where smoke was anticipated. At each location, pairs of quartz and zeflour filters were exposed. On four days, locations with deployed samplers had significant adjacent fire behaviour, and samplers received substantial exposure to intense smoke. The filters were analyzed for 65 elements using ICP-MS, for 7 anions using IC, and for 22 PAH's using GC/MS. The methodology, a summary of the results and a preliminary analysis is presented.

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