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Author(s):
John B. Loomis, Le Trong Hung, Armando Gonzalez-Caban
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Fire Communication & Education
Public Perspectives of Fire Management
Fire & Economics
Fuels
Fuel Treatments & Effects
Mechanical treatments
Prescribed Fire-use treatments

NRFSN number: 11065
FRAMES RCS number: 12936
Record updated:

We estimate a marginal benefit function for using prescribed burning and mechanical fuel reduction programs to reduce acres burned by wildfire in three states. Since each state had different acre reductions, a statistically significant coefficient on the reduction in acres burned is also a split sample scope test frequently used as an indicator of the internal validity of contingent valuation surveys. In this paper the dichotomous contingent valuation method is used to test for scope of the sensitivity of respondent's willingness to pay for prescribed burning and mechanical fire fuel treatment programs to the acreage reduction of wildfires. The logit models were estimated for white and Hispanic households in California, Florida and Montana. The results of logit regressions show that the acreage reduction variable is statistically significant at the 1% level among proposed programs and groups of people. The positive sign of this variable means that the more acreage reduction is proposed, the more likely people would like to pay for the fire fuel reduction programs. Because of the significance of acreage reduction variable in the willingness to pay function, this function can be used to evaluate the incremental benefits of different forest fire management plans that reduce additional acres burned. These benefits could be used as budget justification for prescribed burning and mechanical fire fuel reduction programs to protect forests from wildfires.

Citation

Loomis, John B.;Hung, Le Trong ; González-Cabán, Armando. 2009. Willingness-to-pay function for two fuel treatments to reduce wildfire acreage burned: a scope test and comparison of white and hispanic households. In: González-Cabán, Armando, ed. Proceedings of the third international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: common problems and approaches. PSW-GTR-227. Albany, CA: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. p. 168-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2008.10.006