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Large areas of federal lands in the western states are currently at high risk of severe wildfire and have many insect and disease problems, indicating a significant decline in forest health and resilience. Although research studies have not been…
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This article is a condensed and slightly edited version of a previously published article appearing in the Journal of Forestry (Thompson et al. 2013). Readers wishing for more detail on study motivation, relevant literature, data sources, modeling…
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We examined the effect of large wildfires on economic growth and volatility in the western United States. We matched wildfire data with quarterly employment and earnings growth data to assess the specific effect of wildfire on employment and wage…
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Aircraft are often used to drop suppressants and retardants to assist wildfire containment. Drop effectiveness has rarely been measured due to the difficulties in collecting data from wildfires and running field experiments and the absence of…
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Land management agencies face uncertain tradeoffs regarding investments in preparedness and fuels management versus future suppression costs and impacts to valued resources and assets. Prospective evaluation of fuel treatments allows for comparison…
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Environmental regulations frequently mandate the use of 'best available' science, but ensuring that it is used in decisions around the use and protection of natural resources is often challenging. In the Western US, this relationship…
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Headwaters Economics produced this report to better understand and address why wildfires are becoming more severe and expensive. The report also describes how the protection of homes in the Wildland-Urban Interface has added to these costs and…
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The financial impact of wildfire management within the USDA Forest Service challenges the ability of the agency to meet societal demands and maintain forest health. The extent of this financial crisis has been attributed to historical and continuing…
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Existing studies on the economic impact of wildfire smoke have focused on single fire events or entire seasons without considering the marginal effect of daily fire progression on downwind communities. In addition, neither approach allows for an…
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Modeling the impacts and effects of hazardous fuel reduction treatments is a pressing issue within the wildfire management community. Prospective evaluation of fuel treatment effectiveness allows for comparison of alternative treatment strategies in…
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In this article we develop a simulation model to evaluate the economic efficiency of fuel treatments and apply it to two sagebrush ecosystems in the Great Basin of the western United States: the Wyoming sagebrush steppe and mountain big sagebrush…
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As part of a recent synthesis addressing fuel management in dry, mixed-conifer forests, we analyzed more than 5,000 Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots, a probability sample that represents 33 million acres of these forests throughout…
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The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the United States Congress have repeatedly asked the Office of Wildland Fire in the Department of Interior (DOI) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) to…
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Federal wildland fire management policy in the United States directs the use of value-based methods to guide priorities. However, the economic literature on the effect of wildland fire on nonmarket uses, such as recreation, is limited. This paper…
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