Measurements of Prescribed Burning Emissions at Columbus, Georgia Sangil Lee1, Karsten Baumann2, Venus Dookwah2, Mei Zheng2 1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology,

1
Measurements of Prescribed Burning Emissions at
Columbus, GeorgiaSangil Lee1, Karsten Baumann2,
Venus Dookwah2, Mei Zheng21School of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, 2School of Earth and
Atmospheric SciencesGeorgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

• ? Objective
• Guided by the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the
  DOI through the Fish and Wildlife Service
  mandates that most army and air force bases in
  the
• South-Eastern US use prescribed burning to
  maintain the health of its native long leaf pine
  forest and thus protecting the habitat of the
  endangered
• red-cockaded woodpecker. In recognition of the
  conflicting requirements between the ESA and the
  Clean Air Act (CAA) statutes, the Study of Air
  Quality
• Impacts Resulting from Prescribed Burning on
  Military Facilities was initiated and sponsored
  by the DOA/CERL in support of the DOD Pollution
  prevention
• Partnership.
• ? Prescribed Burning
• ? Develops, maintains, and enhances wildlife
  habitat.
• ? Protects endangered plants and animals.
• ? Preserves and protects cultural resources,
  scenic vistas, and wilderness.
• ? Minimizes potentials of catastrophic
  wildfires that could result from heavy
  accumulations of vegetative fuels.
• ? Air Quality Issues associated with Prescribed
  Burning
• Emissions from prescribed burning are important
  primary sources of gases and particulate matter
  (PM) to the atmosphere.
• ? fine particles are main contributor to
  smoke, impairing visibility.
• ? particles less than 2.5mm are released,
  which are respirable.
• ? organic compounds make a large portion of
  particles, which might have potential of adverse
  health effects.

Diurnal Patterns of PM2.5 and Ozone in
Metropolitan areas of Georgia, 20002002
Increased PM2.5 at Columbus due to local source,
2001
Diurnal patterns of ozone at several different
sites show that these metro areas have similar
daily trends of ozone in summer and winter time,
respectively, during the past three years. Fine
PM concentrations show similar tendencies except
in winter time at Columbus. The increase in
particulate matter from midnight to morning time
indicates that there is a local source for this
increase. Fall line Air Quality (FAQS) Sites
(www.cure.eas.gatech.edu/faqs) Augusta (Aug),
Columbus (Col), Macon (Mac). Griffin (Grif),
Tifton (Tift)
Like diurnal patterns, there is a regionally
similar trend in particulate matter from late
October to early December, except for several
days, which have sudden increase in particulate
matter at the Columbus site. This clearly shows
that there is a local source, which is suspected
as biomass burning (prescribed burning and wild
fires). More calm condition during high PM2.5
episodes might account for accumulation of
particulate emissions from local biomass burning.
Measurement site (Oxbow Learning Center) and Fort
Benning Military Facilities (Prescribed Burning
Site) Columbus, GA
Time Series Plot of Measured Gases and
Particulate Matter
January
February
March
April
May
937 acres
1256 acres
3770 acres
4067 acres
504 acres
251 acres
Background Measurement without Prescribed burning
Low pressure system with shower and T-storm
from 3rd to 4th. Very cold air moved into the
measurement site at early morning of the burn day
Highest PM2.5 event associated with relatively
calm conditions on 25th.
The decrease in temperature (T) combined
with decrease in PAR and increase in wind speed
leads to decreasingO3 maxima and PM2.5 levels.
Build-up in PM2.5 and O3 maxima after record
rainfalls earlier in May strong daytime winds
Relatively low wind speeds all week
Average Diurnal Cycles of Major Meteorological
Parameters and Air Pollutant Concentrations for
March
Particle Compositions for each Prescribed Burning
event
Increasing fractions of Unidentified Mass (grey)
with time progressing into warmer season,
indicates likely larger OOE (turquoise) fraction,
reflecting an organic mass to organic carbon
ratio (OM/OC) increasingly larger than 1.4 likely
due to higher oxygenated PM.
Organic Compounds identified by GC/MS
Non-burn week
Non- burn week
Burn week
Burn week
Acknowledgement This work was sponsored by the
Department of the Army/ U.S. Army Construction
Engineering Research Laboratories (CERL) via
subcontract with the University of South-Carolina
(USC), Grant No. DACA42-02-2-0052, in support of
the DOD Pollution Prevention Partnership. The
authors gratefully acknowledge the collaboration
and field support received by Jill Whiting, Jim
Trostle, and Becky Champion (CSU-OLC), Jack
Greenlee, Hugh Westbury, Polly Gustafson, and
John Brent (Ft. Benning), Frank Burch and Steven
Davis (Columbus Water Works), Allen Braswell and
Stephen Willard (Ft. Gordon), Wes Younger and
Michael Chang (GIT-EAS).

• Measurements of particle-phase organic
  compounds (POC) have been made by a High Volume
  Sampler with pre-baked quartz filters.
• Sampled quartz filters were extracted by
  organic solvent and then analyzed by Gas
  Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS).
• Total 105 POCs are identified n-alkanes (20),
  hopanes (10), steranes (4), polycyclic aromatic
  hydrocarbons (19),
• resin acids (9), aromatic carboxylic acids
  (3), branched alkanes (3), n-alkanoic acids (17),
  alkenoic acids (3), alkanedioic acids (19).
• Cellulose, which provides structural strength
  to plants, constitutes 40-50 dry weight of
  wood. Thermal decomposition of cellulose produces
  mainly
• levoglucosan, a good biomass tracer, during
  wood combustion at T gt 300 oC. Another biomass
  burning marker for conifers containing resin is
  resin acid.
• Samples for the February event have been
  analyzed so far. Levoglucosan is dominant among
  organic compounds identified by GC/MS.
• Two biomass tracers have very similar trend
  of concentrations. Their concentrations (in
  blue) 5 hours after burning is a factor of 2 to 5
  higher than those
• of background and right after burning,
  respectively. This increase is associated with
  relatively calm conditions compared to right
  after the burn.

Larger differences between the daily minimum and
maximum air T and RH were observed on two burn
weeks, 10-16 and 24-30 of March, indicating
overall less cloud coverage and generally drier
conditions. An overall increasing warming trend
leads to more intense atmospheric photochemical
activity and higher O3 maxima. The two burn
weeks were also characterized by elevated
nighttime PM2.5, CO and NOy concentrations.
Continued emissions from smoldering fuel of the
prescribed burnings might account for this
nighttime increase, since the relatively cold
plumes (compared to daytime flaming condition)
are being mixed into the shallow nocturnal
boundary layer.