N.M. Admin. Code § 20.2.65.7

Current through Register Vol. 35, No. 21, November 5, 2024

Section 20.2.65.7 - DEFINITIONS

In addition to the terms defined in 20.2.2 NMAC (definitions), as used in this part:

A. "alternatives to burning" means treatments employing manual, mechanical, chemical, or biological methods to manage vegetation or fuel loads or land management practices that treat vegetation (fuel) without using fire; a treatment or practice may only be considered an alternative if it has successfully been used to take the place of fire for at least three years;

B. "burn project" means, in prescribed burning or in wildland fire use, a burn on an area that is contiguous and is being treated or managed for the same land management objectives;

C. "burner" means that person who is responsible for a prescribed fire project that is regulated under this part;

D. "class I area" means all international parks, national wilderness areas that exceed 5,000 acres in area, national memorial parks that exceed 5,000 acres in area, and national park areas that exceed 6,000 acres in area and that existed on the date of enactment of the Clean Air Act amendments of 1977; the extent of the areas designated as class I shall conform to any changes in the boundaries of such areas that occurred subsequent to the date of the enactment of the Clean Air Act amendments of 1977 or 1990;

E. "emission reduction technique" means a strategy for controlling smoke from prescribed fires that minimizes the amount of smoke output per unit of area treated or other objective unit of accomplishment; such strategy shall be used in conjunction with fire and shall not be a replacement for fire; for the purposes of this regulation, a technique used within three years of a burning operation is an emission reduction technique; if that same technique replaces fire for three years or more, the technique is considered an alternative to burning;

F. "non-attainment area" means an area which has been designated under section 107 of the federal Clean Air Act as nonattainment for one or more of the national ambient air quality standards by the federal environmental protection agency;

G. "part" means an air quality control regulation under Title 20, Chapter 2 of the New Mexico administrative code, unless otherwise noted, as adopted or amended by the board;

H. "pile" means vegetative materials that have been relocated either by hand or machinery and heaped together;

I. "pile volume" means a pile's gross volume, including the air space between solid constituents, as calculated from the pile's overall dimensions and shape;

J. "population" means the total of individuals occupying an area; locations for individuals within an area include, but are not limited to, open campgrounds, single family dwellings, hospitals, schools in use, villages, and open places of employment;

K. "prescribed fire" means any fire ignited by any person to meet specific land management objectives; for the purposes of this part, wildland fire use is considered prescribed fire; any fire ignited in an air curtain incinerator is not "prescribed fire" for purposes of this part;

L. "public notification" means any method that communicates burn information to the burners, air regulators, the local fire authority, and to the general public;

M. "SMP I" means burn projects that emit less than one ton per day of PM-10 emissions or burn less than 5,000 cubic feet pile volume of vegetative material per day;

N. "SMP II" means burn projects that emit greater than or equal to one ton of PM-10 emissions per day or greater than or equal to 5,000 cubic feet pile volume of vegetative material per day;

O. "vegetative material" means untreated wood and untreated wood products, including tree stumps (whole or chipped), trees, tree limbs (whole or chipped), bark, sawdust, chips, scraps, slabs, millings, shavings, grass, grass clippings, leaves, conifer needles, bushes, shrubs, clippings from bushes and shrubs, and agricultural plant residue;

P. "ventilation category" means that adjective describing the ventilation index conditions in terms of excellent, very good, good, fair, and poor;

Q. "ventilation index" means an index that describes the potential for smoke or other pollutants to ventilate away from their source;

R. "wildfire" means any unplanned, non-structural fire that occurs on wildland;

S. "wildland" means an area in which development is essentially non-existent, except for roads, railroads, power lines, and similar transportation facilities; structures if any are widely scattered;

T. "wildland fire use" means the management of wildfire, which is naturally ignited (such as by lightning or volcanic eruption) fire, to accomplish specific pre-stated resource objectives in predefined geographic areas, also known as fire use, wildfire use, prescribed natural fire, and fire for resource benefit.

N.M. Admin. Code § 20.2.65.7

20.2.65.7 NMAC - N, 12/31/03