1,000-Acre Forest Fire to Burn in Name of Science

A 1,000-acre fire that forestry officials and scientists plan to ignite in the name of science this morning in the Angeles National Forest will be the focus of a meticulously planned effort involving dozens of scientists, eight aircraft and 280 firefighters.

If, as expected, dry, clear weather and westerly winds prevail at dawn today, a meteorologist from the South Coast Air Quality Management District will give the go-ahead for the controlled burn, which scientists say will be the most intensively monitored fire in history.

The fire, to be set in Lodi Canyon about 30 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, would be set about 9 a.m. and is expected to burn for four hours.

The fire is intended to give scientists a chance to study phenomena such as fire-caused erosion, air pollution and “nuclear winter,” the controversial theory that smoke from fires ignited by nuclear weapons could block sunlight and chill the Earth, destroying crops and ecosystems.

“Two years of work come down to one day,” said Philip Riggan, the U.S. Forest Service scientist in charge of the project. Conceived in 1984 as a simple controlled burn of overgrown brush, the project, which has been delayed several times by weather, has grown into a many-layered, $750,000 scientific experiment.

Once the fire is under way, instrument-laden aircraft from research centers in Washington, Nevada and New Mexico will converge over the canyon, some mapping the smoke and flames, others collecting smoke samples by diving directly into the 10,000-foot plume of smoke and water clouds that are predicted to form over the fire.

Flying at 65,000 feet, a modified U-2 spy plane from NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View will carry a $600,000 infrared camera to record detailed images of the fire. This system is the precursor to a planned satellite-borne sensor that would monitor forest fires around the Earth, NASA scientist James Brass said.