The Smoke and Roadway Safety Guide provides wildland fire personnel the tools and methods to effectively plan and forecast for roadway smoke impacts and to monitor, respond to, and mitigate smoke on roadways to reduce the risk to the public and fire personnel.

This publication:

•Outlines a sequential process which readers may follow to help prepare for and build awareness of hazards posed by smoke on the roadways and how serious impacts can be.

•Supports the “Smoke, Roadways and Safety” video with detailed methods, tools, and discussion of key indices.

•Highlights fuel conditions, topography, and meteorological situations which promote smoke movement and could result in hazardous situations when near roadways. •Characterizes smoke on roadways, from light impacts to the most visibility impairing, and highest risk situation called superfog, which can’t be driven through safely.

•Provides specific criteria to plan for and mitigate both night and day smoke visibility impacts. This publication may be used by many personnel from Prescribed Fire Burn Bosses to Safety Officers on wildfires to improve safety around all wildland fires that are near roadways.

•Clearly ties the elements and tasks of assessing and mitigating smoke impacts on roadways with the appropriate elements of the NWCG Prescribed Fire Plan Template, PMS 484-1, as outlined in the Interagency Prescribed Fire Planning and Implementation Procedures Guide, PMS 484, https://www.nwcg.gov/publications/484(link is external).