Rethinking cost-share programs: A case study of wildfire risk mitigation assistance for private landowners

Wildfire mitigation efforts on private lands, like maintaining a defensible space around a person’s home, provide benefits to nearby neighbors, the community, and the public at large. By removing a portion of the financial expense, cost-share programs can encourage private landowners to reduce wildfire risk on their properties. In theory, cost shares make risk reduction accessible to all community members. Low-income households may have the most to gain from such programs, as they have the greatest financial need and tend to be the most vulnerable to wildfire hazards. However, is this financial incentive enough to increase mitigation among low-income households?

Researchers took a closer look at factors that influence participation in wildfire risk mitigation cost-share programs for private landowners. In 2017, researchers worked with local wildfire councils to conduct household surveys and parcel-level risk assessments across several fire-prone communities in Colorado. They asked residents of these communities if they would be willing to participate in a cost share program, and if so, how much would they be willing to pay to participate? The researchers found that lower-income participants were less likely to participate in a cost share program. Residents on parcels with higher risk were more likely to participate, but risk level did not influence how much they were willing to pay to participate. Some, but not all, perceived barriers to mitigation practices affected respondents’ willingness to participate in a program.

A key takeaway from this study is that there may be issues with cost-share programs that cannot be addressed with additional financial resources alone. Because lower-income households were less likely to participate in cost-share programs, an unintended result of cost-share programs might be the disproportional support of mitigation by households with higher incomes versus lower incomes. The results highlight the importance of considering costs not only between communities but also within them, as the income effect was found at the individual household level. Future research could identify why lower-income households were less likely to participate in cost-share programs, potentially helping to improve these types of programs meeting the needs of all households.