For atmospheric scientist Dr. Wade Permar, it’s a very exciting day.

It’s late fall in Montana, and thick plumes of smoke rise from a forest fire whilst students and staff from the University of Montana FireCenter stand with rakes and water hoses. He and his team are collecting emissions data from a 30-meter controlled fire (or ‘prescribed burn’) line using a state-of-the-art mobile air quality research lab.

Drawing in fumes from the site, the Mobile Lab measures ozone, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides, along with more than 160 volatile organic compounds; it analyses aerosol optical properties, and records meteorological conditions.

Particulate matter – visible as smoke – degrades air quality. Because many of the particles are so small they get buried deep into your lungs from where they can cross into your bloodstream, increasing the risk of disease to the lungs and heart. Ozone, high in the atmosphere, protects us from much of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation – but when it’s present at ground level it damages plants and cells. These two components are just a small part of the complex mixture that is smoke, with many of the other gasses emitted by fires being responsible for their formation.

The question Dr. Permar and his team are trying to answer is whether the smoke from a prescribed fire differs from a typical wildfire …and is it less harmful to breathe? “One of the best strategies we have to mitigate the impact of severe forest fires in summer months is to conduct more controlled or ‘prescribed’ fires during the fall and spring when conditions are more favorable for burning.” he says.

While air quality has improved in most parts of the US, it’s actually decreasing in the Western United States – as a direct result of increasing wildfires.

“Until now, it’s been very expensive and logistically challenging to collect this type of data. In the past, we mostly studied air quality using research aircraft; putting a bunch of scientific instruments on a plane, and then flying transects through smoke plumes.”

Some of the van’s scientific equipment was previously carried in a C130.

The Van is a laboratory on wheels. The equipment it contains hasn’t been downsized – it’s big and consumes a lot of power.

Here’s Dr. Permar again: For the most part, power and weight are not considerations when the instruments are built, and most are meant to run continuously. That was one important component of the build, a few of the instruments do not like being turned on/off at all, and so need a constant power supply.

Another big perk of how the van was fitted out is that we can switch from shore/generator/alternator power without any power drop (we have the most sensitive equipment on UPS). Our mass spectrometer has been running non-stop in the van for the past month.

In addition to the instruments themselves, we also have quite a few heaters and pumps that draw a significant amount of power.

The van has a power bank to run lab equipment at the same time as allowing other groups to charge drones for scanning fire fronts. They use a WiFi network to help teams stay connected in the field.

Ken Smith of Adventure Van Systems was responsible for turning the Ford Sprinter van into a laboratory packed with more power than most off-grid homes.

He designed a Victron Energy-based power system centered around a large Pylontech battery bank that could supply power without relying on a generator or solar input. The lab equipment generates a lot of heat, necessitating two roof-mounted air conditioners. “The dual AC units on the roof, a fan and other roof penetrations for capturing air samples, didn’t leave enough space to mount solar panels,” explains Ken. There’s also an air sampling “stinger” which extends toward the front of the van to capture clean air samples – free from exhaust fumes and road dust, whilst on the move. An onboard generator was considered, but rejected because it would reduce the ground clearance or take up too much space inside the van – not to mention the noise and added air pollution it would create.”

For these reasons, a battery and inverter system made the most sense. The van’s electrical system includes:

• 2 x  MultiPlus-II 48V 5000W Inverter/Chargers
• 6 x  Pylontech US5000 48V rack-mount LiFePO4 batteries
• 1 x  12V Pylontech RT12100G31 LiFePO4 battery
• 1 x  Smart Solar MPPT 100/20 solar charge controllers (installed as a 48v-12v DC-DC charger for the 12v sub-system – fan, lights, usb charger ports, 12v sockets)
• 1 x  Cerbo GX communication centre device
• 1 x  GX Touch 50
• 2 x  Lynx Power In
• 1 x  Lynx Distributor
• 1 x  1000A SmartShunt
• 1 x  EG4 Chargeverter 48v Charger – Detects voltage at EV charging stations and charges appropriately.
• 1 x  Zeus High-Voltage External Alternator Regulator
• 1 x  48v 100A Auxiliary/Dual Alternator

The inverters and the battery bank are sized to power all onboard equipment, computer servers, and other electronics for a full 8-hour day of sample collection in the field. A second alternator and external alternator regulator maximize battery charging whilst driving.

When it’s deployed for a number of days, by night the van is parked at hotels or sometimes camps, plugged into shore power to recharge the battery bank. An EV charger has also been installed – it’s the primary charging source for the van when parked back at the university’s campus.  

“The system only accepts high-quality power to protect the expensive lab equipment from low voltage, for example. It’s very common to have “dirty” or unreliable power at wildland camps or RV hookups, so knowing that we have all bases covered was a major consideration for the system.” says Reid Loessberg of Intelligent Controls, the Adventure Van Systems’ Victron Distributor. 

Dr. Permar regularly refers to VRM on his phone so that he can monitor the cabin temperature (a push notification lets him know when it gets too hot or cold); check that the shore power is still live; check that the power load is balanced between the two inverters; check consumption and battery State of Charge to ensure they’ll have sufficient power for the next deployment.

Smoke analysed at altitude, in a plane, doesn’t accurately represent air quality at ground level—where humans live and work. The new mobile lab allows Dr. Permar and his team to capture more accurate data which will help inform state policy around the practice of prescribed burns.

“We’ve been able to run 12-hour days of sampling on battery power, even up to 24 hours when the AC units are not running, which is just amazing. The power system setup has exceeded expectations.” says Dr. Permar.

Prescribed burns are controversial due to the risk of them becoming larger wildfires, but the goal is to restore forests through regular low-intensity fires – back to their healthy condition – at the same time as mitigating some of the risks from larger wildfires.

When burning in the spring or the fall, there’s a lot less chemistry that takes place in the atmosphere,” says Dr. Permar. “The air quality impacts tend to be less severe, and the smoke isn’t transported as far at those times of year because the fires are smaller and the temperatures don’t promote long-range transport. So, the impact tends to be local as opposed to regional. But, for all the observed benefits of prescribed fires, there’s not a lot of data available on their air quality impacts.

No one knows the true impact of different policies around wildfire containment until equipment like this is deployed to burn sites and the data is captured. At the tip of the issue is whether this policy of prescribed burns is a good idea. Hopefully, with this lab in the field, we will be able to answer that question clearly – with good data.

To learn more, visit the SMART FIRES project page.