Evidence for the effect of homes on wildfire suppression costs

Abstract

This paper uses wildfires in the Sierra Nevada area of California to estimate the relationship between housing and fire suppression costs. We investigated whether the presence of homes was associated with increased costs of firefighting after controlling for the effects of potential confounding variables including fire size, weather, terrain and human factors such as road access. This paper investigates wildfires in a way that other published studies have not; we analysed costs at the daily level, retaining information that would have been lost had we aggregated the data. We used linear mixed models to estimate the effects of homes on daily costs while incorporating within-fire variation. We conclude that the expected increase in the log daily cost with each unit increase in the log count of homes within 6 miles (~9.7 km) of an active fire is 0.07 (P = 0.005). The findings of this study are in agreement with most other previous empirical studies that have investigated the relationship between fire suppression costs and housing using cumulative fire costs and more generalised data on home locations. The study adds to mounting evidence that increases in housing lead to increases in fire suppression costs.

Where you stand depends on where you sit: qualitative inquiry into notions of fire adaptation

“…While the ecological impacts are not uniform (Parisien et al 2012, Mortiz et al 2014) and fuel treatments must reflect this variation (Schoennagel et al 2017), the largely successful control of fire has played an important role in shaping social assumptions about the place of fire on the landscape and in WUI communities. Assumptions about the place of fire on the landscape may not be specifically articulated; however, continued increases in fire suppression expenditures (Gude et al 2013, USFS 2015 provide a clear signal to society that organizations are committed to preventing and suppressing wildfire events.…”

U.S. wildfire governance as social-ecological problem

“…Expansion of the wildland urban interface drives the need to protect homes, places wildfire fighters in danger, and inflates the cost of wildfire (Gude et al 2013, Fischer et al 2016. Enormous total property values are at risk.…”

“…Some estimate that between 50-95% of firefighting costs are driven by the protection of private property (USDA OIG 2006, Gude et al 2008. Of the 115 million single family homes in the U.S., 40% are located in the WUI (Gorte 2013, Gude et al 2013, and expansion into the WUI is projected to continue. As of 2014, the U.S. economy was recovering, which means the temporary slowdown in homebuilding is now reversing (National Association of Home Builders 2014).…”

“…In the interim, focusing on reshaping federal budgetary priorities and the WUI are the more effective medium-term policy alternatives. Arguably, existing federal policy subsidizes the risk of building in the WUI, by protecting houses through suppression response and reducing fuels/or creating appropriate class conditions in land adjacent to the WUI Ecology and Society 21(4): 3 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss4/art3/ (Gude et al 2013). Until the incentives for building in the wildland urban interface are addressed, it is unlikely that the funding challenges that favor suppression over prevention and preparedness will shift.…”

Examining heterogeneity and wildfire management expenditures using spatially and temporally descriptive data

“…Much progress has been made toward understanding expenditures on wildland fire management activities, including insights into trends in suppression expenditures (Calkin et al, 2005) and the factors related to incident suppression expenditures (Gebert et al, 2007; Canton- Thompson et al, 2008;Liang et al, 2008;Gude et al, 2013;Donovan et al, 2011;Yoder and Gebert, 2012). Despite this progress, sophisticated expenditure models are increasingly needed to better forecast and manage agency expenditures, support outcome based performance measures, inform land, fire, and fuel management planning efforts, and support incident decision making.…”