Treesearch

The purpose of this work is to estimate willingness-to-pay (WTP) for minority (African-American and Hispanic) homeowners in Florida for private and public wildfire risk reduction programs. Also to test for differences in response between the two groups. A random parameter logit and latent class models allowed us to determine if there is difference in wildfire mitigation program preferences and whether WTP is higher for public or private actions for wildfire risk reduction, and whether households with personal experience and perceiving living in higher risk areas have significantly higher...

This paper reports the results of two hypotheses tests regarding whether fuel reduction treatments using prescribed burning and mechanical methods reduces wildfire suppression costs and property damages. To test these two hypotheses data was collected on fuel treatments, fire suppression costs and property damages associated with wildfires on United States National Forests over a five year period. Results of the multiple regressions show that only in California did mechanical fuel treatment reduce wildfire suppression costs. However, the results of our second hypothesis tests that fuel...

This research provides wildfire specialists with tools for estimating the cost of conducting various types of wildfire fuel treatments. The dependent variable in the cost regression is what the USDA Forest Service calls Planned Direct cost per acre. Independent variables included the setting in which the fuel treatment took place (e.g., the wildland-urban interface (WUI) and Metropolitan area), acres of the treatment and the specific fuel reduction activity. The primary data for the analysis came from the Forest Service Activities System (FACTS). Separate models were estimated for activitie...

The Mediterranean part of Turkey (Southern and Western Anatolia) is intensively subjected to forest fires. Within this region the Antalya province places first in terms of area burnt with an annual area of 2633 ha for the period of 2000-2009. Additionally, the biggest forest fire in the history of the Turkey Republic; with an area of about 15000 ha, occurred in Antalya in 2008. Because of the fire problem in this region special attention is given to forest fire management works in Antalya. This situation makes it necessary to observe and understand the structure of, and the reasons for,...

In this paper, we describe the international activities that FAO has undertaken with partners over the years and then reflect on the role of international relations in reducing wildfire impacts on ecosystem services. FAO has long had a focus on wildfire management and been one of the international organizations facilitating the development of a comprehensive approach of Integrated Fire Management through applying the 5Rs; Review and Analysis, Risk Reduction, Readiness, Response to fires and Recovery. As a neutral global institution, FAO hosts secretariats for global and regional networks...

Forest fires and their legacy form an inherently dynamic relationship between ecology and human uses of the forest. This paper provides an overview of the dynamic dimensions that are present in the aftermath of a fire. These include the evolution of social benefits as the ecology recovers and the role of discounting.

We developed an experimental high-resolution fire weather forecast system called FireBuster to help fire management in California. This system streamlines and automates many processes required to deliver timely fire weather intelligence. FireBuster provides routine twice-daily 72-hour weather forecasts in real-time for California at a 5-km grid resolution. Authorized users can select part of the domain and request a 1-km resolution 72-hour forecast with only a few clicks. Forecast outputs include near surface values of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation,...

These proceedings summarize the results of a symposium designed to address current issues of agencies with wildland fire protection responsibility at the federal and state levels in the United States as well as agencies in the international community. The topics discussed at the symposium included ecosystem services and wildland fires: national and international perspective, theory and models for strategic fire planning, economic analysis and integrated wildland fire management, forest fires and sustainable forest management, public policies (national and international level) and the...

Downed coarse woody debris, also known as coarse woody detritus or downed dead wood, is challenging to estimate for many reasons, including irregular shapes, multiple stages of decay, and the difficulty of identifying species. In addition, some properties are commonly not measured, such as wood density and carbon concentration. As a result, there have been few previous evaluations of uncertainty in estimates of downed coarse woody debris, which are necessary for analysis and interpretation of the data. To address this shortcoming, we quantified uncertainties in estimates of downed coarse...

Natural resource plans play a critical role in guiding the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. However, little is known about the quality of management plans. In this study, we evaluated and compared the quality of 35 management plans from federal, state, and nongovernment groups managing longleaf pine ecosystems in the Southeast United States. We developed a plan evaluation tool consisted of five components: (1) Problem and Objective Statement, (2) Fact Base, (3) Actions and Implementation, (4) Integration with Other Plans, and (5) Stakeholder Participation, to examine to what...