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This Project is Funded and Sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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Questions and Comments can be submitted to the email addresses below
Mail to Jeanne L. Hoadley, U.S. Forest Service
Mail to Rob Wilson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 10United States Forest Service
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Overview
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BlueSkyRains - A Web-Based Information System to Help Manage Prescribed Burning, Wildland Fires and Agricultural Burning

What is BlueSky?

BlueSky is a product developed by the USDA Forest Service that links computer models of fuel consumption and emissions, fire, weather, and smoke dispersion into one system for predicting the cumulative impacts of smoke from:

  • prescribed fire
  • wildland fire
  • agricultural fire (from the ClearSky agricultural burn simulation system operated by Washington State University)

Every night BlueSky obtains a regional meteorological forecast and burn information from state and federal agency burn reporting systems. The merging of these data with models of fuel consumption and emission, and dispersion and trajectory models results in a regional forecast of smoke concentrations for the next two days. Further details regarding BlueSky, it’s operation and components, can be found at http://www.fs.fed.us/bluesky.

What is RAINS?

RAINS is the Rapid Access INformation System developed by the Environmental Protection Agency Region 10. It utilizes the latest in Geographical Information System (GIS) technology to give the user a web-based window into the GIS world where they can overlay data layers of interest (topography, census data, Class I wilderness areas, etc.), zoom and pan around the domain, and query a database for additional data regarding the various layers … all with only an internet connection and web browser. RAINS is a GIS application built with ArcIMS (the internet mapping service) and ArcSDE (the spatial database engine). ArcSDE sits on top of a MS SQL server 2000 database. All this complexity is handled at a central location accessible to the public via the internet.

What is BlueSkyRAINS?

BlueSkyRAINS merges the technology of RAINS with the latest available science in smoke dispersion from the BlueSky framework to yield an interactive web-based regional forecast of smoke concentrations overlain on a variety of sensitive receptors. In this way, land managers, regulators, and the general public can view the potential smoke impacts from regional burning activities. Never before have all these capabilities been rought together, therefore BlueSkyRAINS is a powerful tool for interagency planning and cooperation that is changing the way smoke and fire are managed.

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