Research has shown that buming can be an effective means to remove oil from the surface of the water. The combustion characteristics of crude oil have been measured in large laboratory tests using a nominal one meter diameter pool fire. This work reports on progress mid-way through a 2.5 year research program. The objective of this research is to develop measurement equipment and calculations that can be used to characterize oil spill burning at operational scale during field trials of the technology. Field scale measurement techniques for fire radiation, smoke yield, particulate sampling, plume trajectory are descended. Progress in the calculation of particulate deposition downwind of the burn site is presented.