Abstract: |
Wildfire risk mitigation through ex ante vegetation management is receiving more attention in the United States after a strong emphasis on suppression for a hundred years. This paper presents a dynamic economic model with three sets of input choice variables: the timing of pre-harvest vegetation management interventions, harvest date, and expected suppression effort in a context where pre-harvest vegetation management reduces the risk of wildfire. The model is applied to three important policy issues: 1) a general characterization of the relationship between ex ante risk mitigation via vegetation management and wildfire suppression that can be applied to a broad range of specific settings; 2) the consequences of high potential damage from fire as on the wildland-urban fringe for vegetation management regimes, 3) the structure of liability for both prescribed fire and excess fuel loads on vegetation management decisions. Numerical simulation results are presented and discussed as illustrations of the implications from the model. |
