1] A fresh biomass‐burning pollution plume was moni-tored and characterized in terms of optical and microphysical properties for the first time with a combination of Raman lidar and star‐ and sun‐photometers. Such an instrument combina-tion is highly useful for 24‐h monitoring of pollution events. The observations were made at Granada (37.16°N, 3.6°W), Spain. The fresh smoke particles show a rather pronounced accumulation mode and features markedly different from those reported for aged particles. We find lidar ratios around 60–65 sr at 355 nm and 532 nm, and particle effective radii below 0.20 mm. We find low values of the single‐scattering albedo of 0.76–0.9 depending on measurement wavelength. The numbers are lower than what have been found for aged, long‐range‐transported smoke that originated from boreal fires in Canada and Siberia. Citation: Alados‐Arboledas, L., D. Müller, J. L. Guerrero‐Rascado, F. Navas‐Guzmán, D. Pérez‐Ra-mírez, and F. J. Olmo (2011), Optical and microphysical properties of fresh biomass burning aerosol retrieved by Raman lidar, and star‐ and sun‐photometry, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L01807, doi:10.1029/ 2010GL045999.