Smoke Management on the Quinault Indian Reservation

Carolyn KellyAir Quality Specialist

Burn or No Burn?

• Burning planned in advanceNotification:– AQS– Taholah Police Department– WDNR (when, where, resources, tonnage of smoke)– Forest Manager– QDNR Director– Agency Superintendent

Data Collection• RAWS (Remote Automatic Weather Station) used for

current data• Seattle NOAA data center• Daily weather on burn units • Fuel moisture for 10hr fuels and 100hr fuels• SPOT weather forecast– Site specific forecasts

Communicating with the Community

• BBoard• Post Office• Fitness Center• Taholah Merc• QDNR Postings

Wildfires

• Quinault Fire Department receives a fire report from police department or forestry personnel or citizen on:– Location– Color of smoke– Approx. size

QFD responds with 1 type 6 engine and three firefightersSize up fire & communicate with Central DispatchIf more resources are needed, Central Dispatch sends more. Central notifies Forest Manager, QDNR Director, and Agency Superintendent.

Likely Causes..• Human Caused• Lightning Strikes• Fireworks

Rx Fires• RXB3 pile burning program handles burning of

slash piles created by logging each fall season• Currently training staff for RXB2

#’s• The Fire Program burns between 1600 and

2000 pile each year depending on how many timber sales are harvested and how many acres. – For the most part, only landing and road side piles

are burned. – In the past, there have been whole units piled and

fire burns them along with other units.

#’s Cont’d• The Fire Program has seven fire personnel

– Four personnel from Forestry– One person from harvest section forestry– Two from inventory section in forestry

• We also have used folks from BIA Trust Forestry On the average, fire starts with 15 and ends up with 10.

The Fire Program Fire Management OfficerFuel Fires SpecialistCentral Dispatch

*Assistant Fire Management Officer*Structure Fire Chief

Lastly..

Over the last four years of burning slash, Quinault Fire has not had any smoke in Taholah Village, Amanda Park, Queets, or Moclips Estates.

This is due to good planning, watching weather, timing of burns and outstanding work by the burning staff and great assistant from Smoke Management and Air Quality.

THE END