Montana / Idaho Airshed Management System

Project details
The Montana/Idaho Airshed Management System (AMS), created by the National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis (NCLFA), helps the MT/ID Airshed Group to report and track prescribed fire activity across both Montana and Idaho. The Airshed Group's members, 30 burners representing federal, state, and local land management and private industrial timber, use the system to propose burns to the Smoke Monitoring Unit (SMU) Coordinator and report on accomplishments via a Web interface. The SMU Coordinator uses the website and GIS application to make burning recommendations and perform analysis of burn activity. The AMS consists of a relational database, website, and computer mapping (GIS) application.

Through the AMS's web application, Airshed Group members can enter and manage their preseason burn lists, propose burns to the SMU Coordinator, and report on burn accomplishments.

Airshed Group members can access their burn activity through a variety of reports, including lists of preseason, proposed, approved, and completed burns information and data. Reports can be generated in both html and Microsoft Excel formats.

AMS GIS Application
The SMU Coordinator utilizes a custom GIS toolbar within ESRI's ArcMap GIS application to map the locations of proposed burns together with spatial data layers that pertain to the management of smoke (e.g. weather, terrain, elevation, and impact zones).
AMS Web Mapping
The AMS web mapping application allows the public to view a map of proposed, approved, and completed prescribed burns throughout Montana and Idaho. This gives the burners, dispatch personnel, regulatory agencies, and the general public a resource to locate specific burn activity on a given day. The web mapping application can be viewed at: http://Firecenter.cfc.umt.edu/AirshedreportAGS/AirshedReportMapViewer.aspx

Project development
The Montana/Idaho Airshed Group seeks to prevent the accumulation of smoke to protect state and federal air quality standards, visibility goals, and to minimize public exposure to nuisance smoke. The management of smoke dispersion from prescribed fires is important in sustaining air quality. The Airshed Group consists of three units: Montana, North Idaho, and South Idaho, and the Monitoring Unit in Missoula, Mont., coordinates prescribed burning activities of the three Airshed Units and issues burn recommendations based on meteorological forecasts, air quality conditions, and proposed burn activity. The burn recommendations can be issued on a statewide, airshed, impact zone, elevation, and individual burn basis.

Due to the number of agencies and organizations doing and reporting on prescribed burns, the Airshed Group realized the need for a computerized information system to maintain the flow of prescribed burns in Montana and Idaho.

Principal Investigator: Lee Macholz
Project Staff: Haiying Liang, LiMei Piao
Project Partners: Montana / Idaho Airshed Group