Economic analysis of fuel treatments
This article is part of a larger document. View the larger document here.Abstract
The economics of wildfire is complicated because wildfire behavior depends on the spatial and temporal scale at which management decisions made, and because of uncertainties surrounding the results of management actions. Like the wildfire processes they seek to manage, interventions through fire prevention programs, suppression, and fuels management are scale dependent and temporally and spatially dynamic. The objective of this chapter is to describe the status of research into the economics of fuels management. We review studies describing the economic question of fuel treatment choices in wildfire management. We discuss the importance of framing the questions and issues surrounding wildfire management to include influences of space and time on wildfire processes. Finally, we offer a case study that provides one example of evaluating the economics of fuel treatments.