What’s
an Air Resource Advisor?
There’s a new kind of expert available to incident management teams and
agency administrators. Air Resource
Advisors (ARA’s) are trained specialists who can be dispatched to an incident
to assist with understanding and predicting smoke impacts on the public and
fire personnel. They analyze, summarize, and communicate these impacts to incident
teams, air quality regulators, and the public.
Smoke from wildfires can have an enormous impact on the public and fire
personnel, affecting health, interfering with transportation safety, and
upsetting tourism and local economies. ARA’s
are technical specialists with expertise in air quality science including: air
quality monitoring, smoke modeling, pollutant health thresholds, and
communicating about smoke risks and mitigation.
During wildfire incidents when smoke is a concern, their objective is to provide timely smoke impact and forecast
information and messages based on best-available science. They work with
multiple agencies to address public health concerns, smoke risk to
transportation safety, and fire personnel exposure.
What all does an ARA do?
·
Provide, install, and operate air quality monitors in communities,
base and spike camps as needed.
· Summarize information about current air quality conditions
compared to national health thresholds and communicate findings with partner
agencies and the public.
· Run smoke models and provide forecasts of future air quality impacts.
· Work with safety officers to address incident personnel impacts
from smoke.
· Provide information on how to reduce and mitigate smoke exposure.
· Support IMTs in public meetings and in media such as Inciweb,
AirNow and smoke blogs.
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