March NCSAF LUNCHEON

On Friday, March 25, NCSAF will hold its first luncheon of 2011 at the Forest Service's Franklin Court office.  Pete Lahm will be talking about the current state of smoke management policy for federal public land agencies.  Pete will describe what are the current national requirements fire managers have to consider when conducting prescribed fires or managing wildfires, but also will talk about the policy shifts under way in the Obama administration.  EPA, DOD, DOI, and USDA are collaborating to provide the most substantive update to smoke regulations in recent history.  Pete is one of the two point people, representing USDA in these negotiations.

Refreshments will be provided.  A free light lunch will be served about 11:30 am, and we'll start the NCSAF-update portion of the meeting around 11:45 am, and Pete's talk will be from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm.  We'll be sending out additional details over the next week, including directions and a handy flyer, but the location is the Franklin Court Building, (Suite 5500), 1099 14 th St., Washington, DC 20005, which is two blocks from the McPherson Square metro, located on the blue and orange lines.  Please provide an RSVP by Monday, March 21 st to Bryan Petit at brp@obpa.usda.gov . While not absolutely required, this will facilitate people's entrance up to the conference room.

Pete Lahm is the National Fire Air Quality Specialist on the Forest Service's Fire and Aviation staff.  In this role, he has been a liaison between the technical expertise of the USFS and several of the fire leadership organizations, such as the Wildland Fire Leadership Council.  Pete is currently representing the Department of Agriculture in two interagency rulemakings regarding federal regulations surrounding smoke and emissions management.  A lot of this work has been focused in EPA-designated non-attainment areas.  He earned his Masters of Environmental Management from Duke, after which he worked in fire suppression on a variety of National Forests in the Southwest.  Later,, he served as the Arizona Interagency Smoke Management Coordinator, for which he made smoke management decisions on more than 10,000 burns in Arizona.  Pete also led the Fire Emissions Project of the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission and served as the co-chair of the Western Regional Air Partnership's Fire Emissions Joint Forum.