Developing a near real-time regional system for modeling air quality impacts of prescribed fire emissions – linking state fire activity information with regional scale air quality models Scott Goodrick, Gary Achtemeier, Yongqiang Liu Center for Forest Disturbance Science, US Forest Service, Forestry Science Laboratory 320 Green St Athens GA 30602 Jim Brenner Florida Division of Forestry 3125 Conner Blvd. Tallahassee, FL 32399 ABSTRACT Emissions from wildland fires are becoming of increasing importance with recent changes to air quality regulations regarding PM2.5 concentrations and regional haze. Wildfire reporting is fairly well handled, especially when compared with the reporting of prescribed fire activities. Information on prescribed fire emissions ranges from good to nonexistent. With states developing/implementing Smoke Management Plans, the status of prescribed fire emissions information will begin to improve; however differences between states on the information captured in their prescribed fire reporting systems will likely lead to some difficulties in working with the data. The Southern High Resolution Modeling Consortium, as a potential user of this data, has begun work on a flexible database system designed to bring data from the various states together in a consistent format for use by the air quality community. The basic operations of the modeling system and fire activity database will be demonstrated using prescribed fire activity data from the state of Florida. INTRODUCTION In 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the Interim Air Quality Policy on Wildland and Prescribed Fire to protect public health and welfare by taking steps toward mitigating the air quality problems associated with smoke. As part of this policy the EPA urged states to develop and implement some form of smoke management program (SMP). The goals of an SMP are to mitigate the nuisance and public safety hazards (to roads and airports) posed by smoke from wildland fires and to prevent the deterioration of air quality (violations of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards – NAAQS and visibility reduction in Class I Federal areas). While land managers had become accustomed to implementing smoke management practices to minimize the threat of local smoke hazards and nuisance, taking a more regional view of smoke management to address air quality issues is a major departure from previous practices and requires the development of new tools. The starting point for any discussion of fire emissions needs to begin with fire activity data which provides the most basic description of the source, what is burning where and when. For wildfires, a national reporting system (ICS-209) is in place that captures significant wildfire activity on a daily basis. In this system a significant wildfire is defined as 1) a fire of 100 acres or