The Impacts of Wildfire Characteristics and Employment on the Adaptive Management Strategies in the Intermountain West

Liana Prudencio,Courtney Flint,Jeffrey Haight,Natalie Gillard,Emily Esplin,Muyang Ge,Ryan Choi,Patrick Belmont

doi:10.3390/fire1030046

Abstract

Widespread development and shifts from rural to urban areas within the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) has increased fire risks to local populations, as well as introduced complex and long-term costs and benefits to communities. We use an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how trends in fire characteristics influence adaptive management and economies in the Intermountain Western US (IMW). Specifically, we analyze area burned and fire frequency in the IMW over time, how fires in urban or rural settings influence local economies and whether fire trends and economic impacts influence managers’ perspectives and adaptive decision-making. Our analyses showed some increasing fire trends at multiple levels. Using a non-parametric event study model, we evaluated the effects of fire events in rural and urban areas on county-level private industry employment, finding short- and long-term positive effects of fire on employment at several scales and some short-term negative effects for specific sectors. Through interviewing 20 fire managers, we found that most recognize increasing fire trends and that there are both positive and negative economic effects of fire. We also established that many of the participants are implementing adaptive fire management strategies and we identified key challenges to mitigating increasing fire risk in the IMW.

Highlights

Wildfires pose an increasing threat to communities and built infrastructure throughout the Western United States
Our analysis of MTBS historical fire data shows that fire characteristics have changed heterogeneously throughout the Intermountain West (IMW)
There is a significant increase in area burned by rural fires (p < 0.1) (Table 2), while focusing at the state level shows important variations in trends associated with area burned and fire frequency and are often driven by significant burn events or fire-prone areas

Summary

Introduction

Wildfires pose an increasing threat to communities and built infrastructure throughout the Western United States. Fire 2018, 1, 46 parts of California, Oregon and Washington in that the IMW states overall are largely characterized by relatively dry conditions and arid vegetation communities that make it especially vulnerable to large, high-severity fires [4,5,6,7]. This susceptibility to fire is expected to increase under warmer and more arid future climate scenarios [8]. While extensive work on fire has been conducted within this region [2,4], a better interdisciplinary understanding of fire trends at multiple scales within this expansive, ecologically-distinct portion of the West is needed if we are to adapt human behavior for more effective fire management in the face of a changing climate

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Results

Conclusion