Forest Service Use of Nonmarket Valuation in Fire Economics: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Abstract The need for monetary benefits of protecting spotted owl old-growth forest habitat from fire in the early 1990s was the catalyst for application of nonmarket valuation techniques to fire management within the US Forest Service. Two large-scale general public surveys successfully established that the contingent valuation method (CVM) could be used to estimate both state-level and national-level benefits for fire prevention and fire suppression in endangered species critical habitat. By the late 1990s large-scale wildland–urban interface fires resulted in the need to measure what the general public would pay for prescribed burning and mechanical fuel reduction programs. To reduce the expense of conducting original surveys, we use past results to offer benefit transfer of the existing results as a plausible interim technique to provide nonmarket benefits the general public receives from fire prevention and suppression. We also offer some insights as to the next frontiers in CVM application to wildland fire.