FORT Science in Action, Part 2: Economic studies in support of reduced wildfire risks to public safety
As destructive wildfires continue to make headlines, FORT economists play a key role in numerous projects to reduce risks across sectors of society.
Community-level wildfire risk reduction
Working with the US Department of Agriculture, state governments, and nongovernmental partners, researchers support local organizations like fire departments in measuring wildfire risk at the level of individual homes and understanding what drives residents’ decisions about reducing their risk. This long-standing effort helps local agencies tailor solutions that resonate with local needs and is developing knowledge for more effective community-level risk reduction across the country.
Improving wildfire risk assessments
Wildfire risk assessment drives decisions about fuels treatment and other ways to reduce risk on both public and private lands. USGS economists are developing and implementing innovative approaches to wildfire risk assessment that better account for how wildfire affects the values that matter to people and organizations, recognizing that negative effects can persist over time and interact across space. This work is helping to support effective decisions about risk reduction that cut across boundaries between different land managers, including partners at the Department of Defense, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other agencies.
Estimating the costs of reducing wildfire hazards
Land managers work to reduce wildfire risk through a variety of approaches, including fuels treatments in forested areas and fighting the spread of invasive grasses like cheatgrass in sagebrush areas. Information about the full range of costs and benefits of these types of actions helps managers reduce risks more efficiently. Across a series of projects, USGS economists are helping to quantify the costs of different management approaches and actions, putting dollar values on hard-to-measure benefits such as forest health and water security, and estimating associated impacts on local economies through jobs and expenditures.
Together, these interconnected projects aim to enhance wildfire resilience and to address evolving challenges of wildfire management.
More FORT Science in Action
This September, FORT is highlighting how our science projects support sound decision-making. Each day, we will highlight a new project and its applications. To see more, follow the tabs below.
FORT Science in Action, Part 1
FORT Science in Action, Part 3
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