Air Quality Monitoring Network Expanded for Wintertime Prescribed Burning
HELENA—The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has deployed additional air quality monitors to track smoke from prescribed burning by the US. Forest Service’s Helena Ranger District and the City of Helena this winter.
The U.S. Forest Service’s Helena Ranger District has a substantial amount of prescribed burning planned this winter to reduce hazardous fuels, which will in-turn help reduce impacts from wildfires near the community and improve overall forest health. As conditions allow, prescribed burning is anticipated to occur along the Mount Helena Ridge, Grizzly Gulch, Orofino Gulch and Wakina Sky Gulch this winter. The planned burns are an important management tool that the agency uses to manage the forest. The Forest Service estimates proposed burning could be accomplished between January and March 2022.
Additionally, the City of Helena will be burning slash piles on approximately 50 acres to help reduce fire risk on its open lands. The burning will take place on Mount Helena and Mount Ascension.
Wintertime burning is challenging from an air quality perspective because daily atmospheric heating and mixing cycles are often too weak to clear smoke in the winter, compared to other seasons. Stagnant air episodes, known as inversions, frequently trap pollutants at the surface for days, or even weeks, at a time. Wintertime prescribed burns are increasingly necessary, however, as fire danger has been high recently, and it is unsafe to conduct burning without snow on the ground.
The Forest Service and City of Helena are working with DEQ to identify good windows for burning based on when smoke will be transported up and away from the sites as effectively as possible. Even if burning is conducted on days with the best possible meteorological conditions, there will still be residual smoke that settles and drains into valleys overnight. Within a single city or neighborhood, pollutant concentrations can vary greatly due to small differences in geography, elevation and meteorology. DEQ has deployed additional air quality monitors in-and-around Helena this winter to inform DEQ’s recommendations when reviewing burn requests. The monitors will help track smoke concentrations in town and data are available as a resource for the public.
Three additional monitors have been deployed at Bear Gulch, Pioneer Park and on Le Grande Cannon Blvd. Monitor locations were selected based on proximity to planned fires, anticipated down-valley smoke drainage and population density.
Data from the temporary monitors are publicly available on EPA’s AirNow Fire and Smoke map. This map displays data from temporary monitors and low-cost monitors purchased by private citizens, in addition to DEQ’s regulatory monitors. The temporary monitors deployed for this project are near-regulatory grade and subject to robust quality assurance to ensure accuracy. To view data from the monitors visit: https://fire.airnow.gov/#
Prescribed burning began the first week of January and is expected to continue through March 2022, as weather allows. The Forest Service will be posting burn-day notifications on Facebook @HLCNF and Twitter @LewisandClarkNF. To view a map of where burning is anticipated to occur in and around Helena, visit: https://go.usa.gov/xtaVk
The City of Helena will post notifications of its burning activities on Facebook @CityofHelena and Twitter @city_helena
Near real-time air quality information can be accessed at any time via DEQ’s Today’s Air and temporary monitor information can be accessed via the AirNow Fire and Smoke map.Tags: Air and Press Release