FOR 62 Where There’s Fire, There’s Smoke: Air Quality and Prescribed Burning in Florida 1 Martha C. Monroe, Adam C. Watts, and Leda N. Kobziar 2 1. This document is FOR 62, one of a series of the School of Forest Resources and Conservation Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Original publication date November 1999. Reviewed March 2013. Visit the EDIS website at http://edis.ifas.ul.edu. 2. Martha C. Monroe, professor, School of Forest Resources and Conservation; Adam C. Watts, graduate research assistant, School of Natural Resources and Environment; Leda N. Kobziar, associatet professor of ire science and forest conservation, School of Forest Resources and Conservation, School of Natural Resources and Environment; Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or ailiations. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A&M University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Nick T. Place , Dean Prescribed burning, the carefully planned and directed use of ire to achieve land management goals, is a useful tool for resource managers in Florida. Land owners may choose ire to achieve a variety of objectives, such as restoring a ire-dependent ecosystem, enhancing forage for cattle, improving wildlife habitat, preparing sites for reforestation, or reducing hazardous fuel loads. Prescribed burns achieve many beneits for the environment and for people, but they have a few side efects as well, chief among which is smoke. Some smoke is simply unavoidable with prescribed burning, but the potential for harm can be much reduced with the use of smoke management techniques to avoid air quality reduction or visibility problems on highways. he direction of smoke plumes can be calculated with computer programs long before anyone strikes a match, and savvy land managers avoid smoke-sensitive areas by burning under weather conditions that minimize smoke formation and problems. As a result of this watchful management (Figure 1), there is usually far less smoke from a prescribed ire than from a wildire burning over the same area. As more people move to Florida’s rural areas, more people will be exposed to smoke from these ires, and smoke manage- ment will become increasingly critical. Smoke is a mixture of water vapor and combustion products, including tiny particles of organic matter. hese particulates are considered to be an air pollutant and are regulated by federal law. his fact sheet provides some background information on air quality, the efects of smoke on human health and safety, and regulations concerning the use of prescribed ires and the smoke produced by them. We conclude with a description of some strategies that can be used to protect air quality while still gleaning the beneits of prescribed burning. Figure 1. Prescribed burning in Florida is conducted by trained personnel who plan carefully to minimize the impacts of smoke to populated areas.