Prescription Burns at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Prescription burns (also known as prescribed burns and controlled burns) help reduce the instances and intensity of catastrophic wildfires. They are designed to approximate the vegetative effects of periodic naturally occurring fires. These low-temperature, low-intensity burns clear the ground of dangerous fuels, including deadwood and brush. These burns also promote more diverse habitats for wildlife

Los Alamos National Laboratory conducts a prescription-burn program to help protect Laboratory facilities, the Laboratory workforce and citizens and facilities in surrounding communities from dangers associated with unplanned natural or human-caused wildfires.

To protect the public and the Lab’s own personnel from potential airborne emissions, LANL:

1. identifies and estimates hazards beforehand by means of a formal project review process
2. takes extensive measurements during the work to ensure that the emissions turn out as expected.

LANL has collected and analyzed data reflecting the effects of large-scale vegetative burning on the quality of the ambient air. Measurements were made for burns both on and off Laboratory property. The Laboratory has analyzed and disclosed in detail data from three significant fires as noted in references 1 and 2 below:

• Cerro Grande fire (near and in Los Alamos, May 2000)
• Petaca-Las Tablas prescription burn (near El Rito, September 2001)
• La Madera prescription burn (near El Rito, October 2002)

Most significant, for burns on LANL property, the emissions profile and concentrations (including total suspended particulate matter and radionuclides) are consistent with those for burns conducted far from the Laboratory. No airborne contamination of LANL origin has ever been measured off-site due to fires on Laboratory property.

For the prescription burns currently planned at the Laboratory, LANL’s experts predict that Laboratory contributions to the emissions will be too small to measure and that the resulting dose will be less than 0.1 percent of that from natural background. The Laboratory will also measure radioactivity and total suspended particulate matter during the burns to confirm these expected low results.

The following Web links relate to air monitoring at LANL.

• Air Monitoring at Los Alamos
• Airnet Program Description
• Airnet Data

References

1. Radionuclide Emission Factors from Prescribed Burns in Northern New Mexico, Reinhardt et al., Los Alamos National Laboratory report LA-14113, March 2004.
2. Environmental Surveillance at Los Alamos during 2000, Los Alamos National Laboratory report LA-13861-ENV, pp 114-118, October 2001.