Burn Determinations During Emergency Response Smoke Events

Emergency Response Events in the SJV  Tracy Tire Fire  Westley Tire Fire  Crippin Waste Wood Fire  Wildfires (Manter, McNally)

Burn Declarations During Emergency Response Smoke Events  Public is sensitized to smoke  Health statements  Overwhelming arguments against adding avoidable emissions into the air  Measured impacts spotty  Cannot monitor everywhere

Analyses Needed During Emergency Response Events  Amount of emissions  Area and magnitude of impact  Complaints  PM and ozone precursor emissions  Plume rise

Actions by air agencies during emergency response smoke events  Monitoring (PM, CO, Toxics, metals)  Health statements  Emission curtailments including burns (STA and PDLT)  Decision of when to resume normal operations

Westley Tire Fire (9/22/99- 10/28/99)

Tracy Tire Fire (8/ /2000)

McNally Fire 22 July :10 GMT

Crippin Wood Waste Fire (January 11-February 9, 2003)

San Joaquin Valley APCD Air Quality Monitoring, Analyses, and Forecasting During the Crippin Fire  Twice daily particulate matter reports and forecasts  Health Statements (13)  Declaration of agricultural no burn days  Active attendance at press conferences  Responding to media and issuing press releases  Deploying and operating a monitoring trailer at Chandler Airport and siting guidance to ARB

Agencies Involved in Crippin Fire  EPA  OES  ARB  SJVAPCD

Monitoring Results  Fire impacted monitors on 14 days  1- hour PM2.5 maximum 228ug/m3  24- hour PM2.5 maximum 80ug/m3  159 AQI=Unhealthy  Normal maximums in Fresno=205 AQI

Crippin Air Quality Measurements

Modeling fire with ISC

Smoke Impacts During the Control of Crippin Fire

Summary and Conclusions  Quantification of impacts during events is difficult  Complaints and monitoring do not always agree  Decision to allow other burning relies on impact analyses using the corroboration of monitoring, modeling, meteorology and social factors  Discussion