The International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) is pleased to announce the establishment of the Distinguished Service Award which recognizes individuals, groups or organizations for their outstanding contributions to furthering the goals of the Association.

To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the International Journal of Wildland Fire, the Association proudly honors Dr. William T. Sommers of George Mason University as the first recipient of the Distinguished Service Award. Through his vision and leadership as the Forest Service Director of Forest Fire and Atmospheric Sciences Research, the International Journal of Wildland Fire was created.

Dr. Sommers spent 30 years in the research division of the U.S. Forest Service, serving as a director of national research programs.  In that capacity, his areas of responsibility included forest fires, global change, the carbon cycle, invasive species, quantitative ecology, ecological risk assessment, and sustainable forest management.  He was a member of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), the International Boreal Forest Research Organization (IBFRA) and the Roundtable on Sustainable Forests.  In addition, he was active in the White House science committees on Global Change and Ecological Systems.

Following his distinguished career in the U.S. Forest Service, Bill joined the staff at George Mason University, where he serves as a research professor and chief scientist at the College of Science Center for Climate and Society, and as the co-Director of the EastFIRE Laboratory.  Dr. Sommers is currently engaged in research on fire history and climate change as well as fire emissions of GHG and black carbon. 

Dr. Sommers’ academic training is in Atmospheric Science and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics with degrees from the City College of New York (CCNY), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and State University of New York at Albany (SUNYA), with additional training at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 

Bill has served on the IAWF’s board of directors and as vice-president of the Association. He also represented IAWF as a member of the U.S. delegation to the XIII^th World Forestry Congress in Argentina. Bill continues to forward the Association’s goals through his research and education. 

Congratulations Dr. Sommers. The IAWF is grateful for all of your contributions to the Association and the field of wildland fire science.

The IAWF is pleased to announce the winner of the IAWF Managers Award for Relevant Research, presented at the Ninth Symposium of Fire and Forest Meteorology in Palm Springs, California.  Sean Raffuse and his entire team indicated that is it their sincere hope that the tools they are developing are useful to the fire management community.

BlueSky Playground:  Interactive Smoke Modeling on the Web

Presented by: Sean Raffuse

Additional Authors: Narasimhan (Sim) Larkin, Alan Healy, Robert Solomon, Miriam Rorig, Janice Peterson, Tara Strand

Abstract: As standards for particulate pollution continue to tighten, land managers that approve or conduct prescribed burns must manage smoke production carefully to minimize smoke impacts in sensitive areas.  BlueSky Playground is an interactive, web-based tool for exploring smoke emissions and resulting downwind smoke concentrations from wild and prescribed fires.  It connects to state-of-the-science models within the BlueSky Framework, providing access to powerful modeling tools in an easy-to-use interface.  BlueSky Playground is freely available and requires no login to access the core features.  BlueSky Playground has recently been expanded to provide more useful tools for prescribed burn planning and is part of the Wildland Fire Decision Support System Air Quality suite (WFDSS-AQ). 

Bio: Sean M. Raffuse,  Fire Sciences Program Coordinator,  Senior Air Quality Analyst

Sean conducts and coordinates STI’s research and development at the intersection between wildland fires and air quality.  He develops innovative tools and techniques for understanding how smoke impacts the environment and how those impacts can be reduced.  He applies his expertise in satellite remote sensing to advance the state-of-the-science and enjoys finding the connections between disparate lines of research.  Sean’s love of play drives him to seek out new ideas, challenges, and opportunities both personally and professionally.

Sean regularly presents STI’s cutting-edge work at conferences and is a member of the American Geophysical Union, the International Association of Wildland Fire, the Association of Fire Ecology, and the Air & Waste Management Association.  He earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Lewis and Clark College and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.