16 September 1995
PH: I'll start summarizing this flight. Basically we've sample two fires or groups of fires. The first one was mainly pasture burning, some flames, and we did pretty good chemistry sampling on that, and some cloud sampling also. We spent most of our time, however, on the second group of fires, which was flaming combustion of some debris as well as trees and undergrowth. There was a group of four or five fires that were producing quite a big plume. We sampled that very extensively, both the smoke plume and below-cloud base. In the cloud we looked for smoke coming out of the cloud at first not too successfully. We then went back down again to the source and did some chemistry samples for emission factors. We then went back into the cloud and had more success, I think, in finding smoke exiting the cloud. Then we finished up by doing a lidar profile along the short length of the smoke and then across the smoke at a couple of points. And now we are in the last few minutes of the flight we're heading back to see if we can get a chemistry sample of the smoke coming out of the fire. Because, although we went through a good sample of that smoke earlier on, almost about the same time that we went through it the pump for the canisters went. But that's now back up, so we're going to have another try at getting into that strong outflow of smoke (which we did).
So, I think today was the best smoke-cloud interaction data set that we've got so far and in flaming combustion.
Okay, we haven't got long to go before we land, so we'll have to do a quick summary. I've done mine already. Are you ready to go, Ray?
RW: Yes. The background smoke was white, but when we got up to flaming fire there was a fair amount of black carbon in it. And we got a lot of good measurements. The humidigraph worked pretty well. Showed growth both at source and within the cloud. And I also got some A3 activity. Or at least I think I did. So, that will be interesting to look at.
PH: Okay, good. All right, Jeff, can you summarize quickly what you achieved today?
JSR: Yes, we got about three really good emission factors, all with RAS cans. We also have two good samples in-cloud and one third one in the exit region.
PH: Okay. Can you say a little bit more about what you did on the separate fires. We looked first of all at that first fire that was a pasture fire, then we did most of time spent on that flaming combustion fire.
JSR: Okay. On that first fire we started off with an emission factor and then we got another sample at cloud base and another sample in-cloud. All of those have Teflons and Nuclepores and the emission factor at the cloud base has the quartz filter. The second fire we have emission factor again and two samples in the cloud. All with all of the filters.
PH: Okay, Jack.
JR: Everything worked well. The only thing that failed, I guess, was the RAS can pump. But all I had to do was give it a kick and it started up again.
PH: Okay. We're in a plume here as we come in. Can't see where it's coming from but a pretty good plume. Don, are you up yet.
JR: Yes, Don just came.
PH: Don, summarize.
DS: CCN worked fine. Got some good CAR and lidar data and Valero's instrument looked pretty good too.
PH: Okay, so that's about it. Good flight. Just coming into land.
Just went through quite a plume there, Rod. Did you see where it was coming from?
Jeff, did we get some hot and colds?
JSR: Yes, we did on just about all of them.
PH: Okay. You didn't mention that. I suppose you don't know what they look like.
JSR: Actually, I took a few good glances at it and it looked pretty good.
PH: Same as usual?
JSR: Yes, it looks like about 30 to 40% of the total volume is high volatility organics and water vapor.
PH: Is that about the same as we've seen elsewhere?
JSR: Yes, it's pretty much the same.
PH: And that's over the whole size range, is it?
JSR: That's correct.
PH: Still a lot of fires here as we come in to land.