Faithin Omaha eBook Collection

Download or read book The Impact of Residential Development Pattern on Wildland Fire Suppression Expenditures written by Anna M. Scofield and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wildland urban interface (WUI) increases wildland fire suppression expenditures and impedes land managers' ability to reduce fire risk. Policies to reduce these WUI impacts are hindered by jurisdictional externalities -- federal agencies are charged with protecting homes from wildland fires, while local governments decide where and how development can occur. Policymakers therefore need an understanding of WUI characteristics that drive firefighting expenditures to develop effective solutions for existing and future WUI development. Despite a growing body of literature indicating that the spatial pattern of development impacts the efficiency and cost of public service provision, the effect of WUI development pattern on fire suppression expenditures has received only cursory treatment in the literature. I address this gap by empirically modeling the relationship between fire suppression expenditures and the spatial pattern of residential development. I use data on 280 fires in the Northern Rockies (CO, MT and WY) to estimate a regression model relating suppression expenditures to fire characteristics, management characteristics, and the spatial pattern of development. I find that the effect of WUI development on suppression expenditures is highly dependent on spatial pattern. Though past research has confirmed that the presence of structures influences expenditures, my results indicate that the effect of development on fire suppression expenditures cannot be accurately assessed without considering the spatial pattern of development. A unit increase in the complexity of development pattern increases expenditures by approximately six percent. The difference in expenditures between fires with dispersed or clustered structures can be as much as $620,000. My results indicate that policies that control the spatial pattern of WUI development can be nearly as effective as policies that completely restrict WUI development.