National Fire Emissions Technical Work Shop
May 4-6, 2004, New Orleans, LA
Sponsored by: EPA, USDA Forest Service, WRAP and CENRAP

Introduction and Background

Wildfires and prescribed burning of forest and range land are important contributors to regional haze and visibility impairment across much of the United States. EPA has been working with the Western Regional Air Partnership (WRAP) to develop strategies for minimizing adverse environmental impacts of prescribed burning. However, effective planning of these burns will require additional efforts to improve the emissions data bases and models that are used to analyze the impacts of burning. Most importantly, we are broadening participation to ensure appropriate input from VISTAS, CENRAP, the Midwest RPO, and MANE-VU.

Consensus is needed among managers and modelers on strategic and technical aspects of estimating wildland fire emissions. The goal of this process is an agreed upon set of consistent fire emission estimation methodologies and a nationally accessible data system that's able to provide the necessary data so users could make the emission estimates they need. This includes:

• a nested set of methodologies, internally consistent but as detailed as the data will allow and the application requires,
• avoiding unneeded or unreasonable data requirements,
• a systematic way to ensure that the data are QA'd and consistent (or at least that differences are documented).

The Western Regional Air Partnership (& other RPO's), Environmental Protection Agency, Forest Service and Department of Interior are planning a Work Shop to answer some difficult questions that will help meet the above goals. Leading up to this Work Shop, we are holding a series of small conference calls to focus the Work Shop discussions and if possible reach agreement on some basic concepts prior to the Work Shop. These discussions are a process, and discussions and opinions documented in the meeting proceedings are subject to change. While we have attempted to include experts from different areas of the fire community, participants may not represent or bring to light all issues and needs from all affected parties across the country. The purpose of the calls is to resolve more technical issues; the process will work toward a larger Work Shop that will continue and formalize these discussions.

Below you will find links to all conference call proceedings and working documents that are being used as discussion tools. All documents in these sections should be considered works in progress and are subject to change.

• Preliminary Detailed Discussion Topics PDF
• Nomination Form DOC
• DRAFT Workshop Briefing Paper PDF or DOC (01/20/04)
• Teleconference Minutes
• Works in Progress

FEJF Contacts: