Wildland arson management
Abstract
Wildland arson has received scant attention in the resource economics literature, yet is the cause of many large and damaging wildland fires. Research into wildfire management and policy in the United States has been principally concerned with wildfire suppression, fuels treatments, fire science (behavior), and economic efficiency questions. This is unfortunate, because wildland arson in some parts of the United States comprises well over a quarter of all fire starts and is the third most common type of arson behind arson fires in residential and educational structures. From an ecological and wildland management standpoint, wildland arson fires comprise an important piece of the overall wildfire production process. This chapter provides a theoretical structure for understanding arson wildfires, documents some existing research, and provides some empirical examples of arson wildfire research from the U.S.