Brush Fire Test Is on Again
Forestry and fire officials planned today to set an experimental brush fire that has been delayed for three months--first by wind and rain, and then by a helicopter crash last week.
“Weather conditions are looking just right,” said Philip Riggan, the U.S. Forest Service scientist who is directing research on the fire.
After tests of weather conditions, the fire was scheduled to be set this morning in 1,000 acres of rugged chaparral in Angeles National Forest, 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Originally planned as a simple burn of overgrown brush, the project has ballooned into a $750,000 experiment that is said to be the most intensive effort ever to study the physics of fire and smoke.
Data gathered during the four-hour fire will be used to study--among other things--the “nuclear winter” theory, which predicts that smoke from fires ignited during a nuclear war would block sunlight and chill the earth.
The plume of smoke will be sampled and mapped by half a dozen research aircraft.
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