Southern Region team mitigates smoke effects, promotes clean air

April 27, 2023

Blue sky with fluffy clouds on top half and lush green forests on bottom half of photo. — *Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. Photo courtesy of Kate Florian.*

GEORGIA — In the past 30 years, air quality has improved significantly in national forests and across the U.S. Clean air is not just good for our health, it benefits plants and animals as well. However, we also know millions of people are exposed to unclean air each year.

The USDA Forest Service promotes healthy forests while balancing the needs of nearby communities by monitoring the effects of air pollution on human health, visibility, vegetation, water and soil.

“We want to ensure air pollution from management actions like prescribed fires does not impact surrounding communities,” said Melanie Pitrolo, regional air program manager in the Southern Region. “We also evaluate community and industrial pollution sources to ensure forest resources, especially wilderness areas, are not negatively impacted.”

In the southeastern states, prescribed fire is used more frequently than any other U.S. region. About 6.5 million acres for forest management and 3.8 million acres for agriculture are burned each year across federal, state and private lands. Because of this, the region’s air staff has developed expertise in smoke management techniques and greenhouse gas emissions analyses. The air staff helps communities prepare for smoke impacts by developing tools and resources to address and mitigate air quality concerns from prescribed fire activity across the Southern Region.

Prescribed fire remains an important proactive tool for restoring healthy ecosystems and reducing wildfire risk. As such, land managers plan for prescribed fires, choosing areas they want to burn and the size of those areas. However, before fire managers can begin burning, specific weather and wind conditions must exist.

“Our air staff creatively tackles complex air quality issues across regional and agency boundaries,” said Chris Worth, acting director of Biological and Physical Resources for the Forest Service, Southern Region. “The staff’s relentless focus on customer service has established a collaborative model for other programs within the Forest Service and with our land management partners.”

For Air Quality Awareness Week, May 1-5, we encourage you to learn more about the importance of air quality and its effects on human health and the environment (internal link).

A man is checking boxes that contain electronic equipment. The boxes are located under an open wall, wood building. The wood trusses from the ceiling can be seen on top. — Air monitoring equipment is replaced on the Sipsey Wilderness, a Federal Class I area on the Bankhead National Forest in Alabama. The Sipsey Wilderness area is one of seven sites managed by the USDA Forest Service Southern Region, where operators collect data and perform maintenance, in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, UC Davis air quality researchers, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Each site addresses visibility degradation issues at areas that have been designated by Congress to be afforded the highest level of air quality protection under the law. The effort is known nationally as the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments. USDA Photo by Jacob Deal.