Wildfire effects on hiking and biking demand in New Mexico: a travel cost study

We use a travel cost model to test the effects of wild and prescribed fire on visitation by hikers and mountain bikers in New Mexico. Our results indicate that net benefits for mountain bikers is $150 per trip and that they take an average of 6.2 trips per year. Hikers take 2.8 trips per year with individual net benefits per trip of $130. Both hikers' and mountain bikers' demand functions react adversely to prescribed burning. Net benefits for both groups fall as areas recover from prescribed burns. Because both visitation and annual recreation benefits decrease to these two types of visitors, this gives rise to multiple use costs associated with prescribed burning. With respect to wildfire, hikers and mountain bikers both exhibit decreased visitation as areas recover from wildfires, however, only hikers indicate an increase in per trip net benefits. Bikers' demand effectively drops to zero. These results differ from previous findings in the literature and have implications for efficient implementation of the National Fire Plan and whether prescribed burning is a cost effective tool for multiple use management of National Forests. Specifically, that fire and recreation managers cannot expect recreation users to react similarly to fire across recreation activities, or different geographic regions. What is cost effective in one region may not be so in another.     

Measuring Plant Diversity in the Tall Threetip Sagebrush Steppe: Influence of Previous Grazing Management Practices

In July 2000, a 490-ha wildfire burned a portion of a long-term grazing study that had been established in 1924 at the US Sheep Experiment Station north of Dubois, Idaho, USA. Earlier vegetation measurements in this tall threetip sagebrush (Artemisia tripartita spp. tripartita) bunchgrass plant community documented significant changes in vegetation due to grazing and the timing of grazing by sheep. A study was initiated in May 2001 using 12 multiscale modified Whittaker plots to determine the consequences of previous grazing practices on postfire vegetation composition. Because there was only one wildfire and it did not burn all of the original plots, the treatments are not replicated in time or space. We reduce the potential effects of psuedoreplication by confining our discussion to the sample area only. There were a total of 84 species in the sampled areas with 69 in the spring-grazed area and 70 each in the fall- and ungrazed areas. Vegetation within plots was equally rich and even with similar numbers of abundant species. The spring-grazed plots, however, had half as much plant cover as the fall- and ungrazed plots and the spring-grazed plots had the largest proportion of plant cover composed of introduced (27%) and annual (34%) plants. The fall-grazed plots had the highest proportion of native perennial grasses (43%) and the lowest proportion of native annual forbs (1%). The ungrazed plots had the lowest proportion of introduced plants (4%) and the highest proportion of native perennial forbs (66%). The vegetation of spring-grazed plots is in a degraded condition for the environment and further degradation may continue, with or without continued grazing or some other disturbance. If ecosystem condition was based solely on plant diversity and only a count of species numbers was used to determine plant diversity, this research would have falsely concluded that grazing and timing of grazing did not impact the condition of the ecosystem.     

Lightning Fires in a Brazilian Savanna National Park: Rethinking Management Strategies

Fire occurrences and their sources were monitored in Emas National Park, Brazil (17°49′–18°28′S; 52°39′–53°10′W) from June 1995 to May 1999. The extent of burned area and weather conditions were registered. Forty-five fires were recorded and mapped on a GIS during this study. Four fires occurred in the dry winter season (June–August; 7,942 ha burned), all caused by humans; 10 fires occurred in the seasonally transitional months (May and September) (33,386 ha burned); 31 fires occurred in the wet season, of which 30 were caused by lightning inside the park (29,326 ha burned), and one started outside the park (866 ha burned). Wet season lightning fires started in the open vegetation (wet field or grassy savanna) at a flat plateau, an area that showed significantly higher fire incidence. On average, winter fires burned larger areas and spread more quickly, compared to lightning fires, and fire suppression was necessary to extinguish them. Most lightning fires were patchy and extinguished primarily by rain. Lightning fires in the wet season, previously considered unimportant episodes, were shown to be very frequent and probably represent the natural fire pattern in the region. Lightning fires should be regarded as ecologically beneficial, as they create natural barriers to the spread of winter fires. The present fire management in the park is based on the burning of preventive firebreaks in the dry season and exclusion of any other fire. This policy does not take advantage of the beneficial effects of the natural fire regime and may in fact reduce biodiversity. The results presented here stress the need for reevaluating present policies and management procedures concerning fire in cerrado conservation areas.     

Stay and defend or leave early: Policy problems and experiences during the 2003 Victorian bushfires

Australian state and territory fire authorities advise residents to make a decision to prepare, stay and defend their properties from bushfires or leave well before the fire arrives in their area. The ‘Stay and defend or leave early’ policy is underpinned by strong evidence that well-prepared houses can be successfully defended and that late evacuation is a dangerous strategy. This paper presents the results of a study of the policy's implementation during the 2003 bushfires in North East Victoria and East Gippsland. Results suggest that despite high levels of awareness and support for the policy, there is some confusion over what it means to ‘stay and defend’ and ‘leave early’.     

Environmental circumstances surrounding bushfire fatalities in Australia 1901–2011

This paper describes the development and analysis of a dataset covering bushfire related life loss in Australia over the past 110 years (1901–2011). Over this time period 260 bushfires have been associated with a total of 825 known civilian and firefighter fatalities. This database was developed to provide an evidence base from which an Australian national fire danger rating system can be developed and has benefits in formalising our understanding of community exposure to bushfire. The database includes detail of the spatial, temporal and localised context in which the fatalities occurred. This paper presents the analysis of 674 civilian fatalities. The analysis has focused on characterising the relationship between fatal exposure location, weather conditions (wind speed, temperature, relative humidity and drought indices), proximity to fuel, activities and decision making leading up to the death.The analysis demonstrates that civilian fatalities were dominated by several iconic bushfires that have occurred under very severe weather conditions. The fatalities from Australia's 10 worst bushfire days accounted for 64% of all civilian fatalities. Over 50% of all fatalities occurred on days where the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) exceeded 100 (the current threshold for declaring a day as ‘catastrophic’) proximal to the fatality.The dominant location category was open air representing 58% of all fatalities followed by 28% in structures, and 8% in vehicles (6% are unknown). For bushfires occurring under weather conditions exceeding an FFDI value of 100, fatalities within structures represented over 60% of all fatalities. These were associated with people dying while attempting to shelter mainly in their place of residence. Of the fatalities that occurred inside a structure in a location that was specifically known, 41% occurred in rooms with reduced visibility to the outside conditions. Over 78% of all fatalities occurred within 30 m of the forest.     

Perceived and actual wildfire danger: An economic and spatial analysis study in Colorado (USA)

Over the last 20 years, costs for wildfire initial attack in the U.S. have increased significantly. The increased cost relates to wildfire suppression practices, as well as the growing number of homes in the wildland urban interface. Requiring wildland urban interface residents to pay an annual tax for their wildfire risk could lower costs to the general taxpayer. Willingness-to-pay for wildfire prevention, in relation to both perceived and actual wildfire danger, was the focus of this study. Surveyed Colorado wildland urban interface residents were found to have a high awareness of wildfire risk and were willing-to-pay over $400 annually to reduce this risk. Respondents' beliefs about wildfire frequency were comparable to the wildfire regimes of their areas' pre-European settlement.     

Forecasting the outbreak of moorland wildfires in the English Peak District

Warmer, drier summers brought by climate change increase the potential risk of wildfires on the moorland of the Peak District of northern England. Fires are costly to fight, damage the ecosystem, harm water catchments, cause erosion scars and disrupt transport. Fires release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Accurate forecasts of the timing of fires help deployment of fire fighting resources.     

The Influence of Proximity to a National Forest on Emotions and Fire-Management Decisions

Because American national forests are managed for all citizens, it is important that researchers explore the differences and similarities between citizens living both near and far from publicly managed land. We surveyed residents living at various distances from nationally managed land to collect resident perceptions of different forest fire-management techniques, to determine public preferences for these techniques, and to examine the motivations behind these preferences. Participants both close to and far away from national forests tended to favor a multipronged approach to fire management by preferring the use of a combination of two or more fire-management techniques. There were no significant differences by proximity in participants’ self-rated emotions, types of fire-management techniques preferred, or the reasons and rationales for their preferred fire-management technique(s), indicating that the proximity variable may not be as significant as previously thought.     

Great Basin Land Management Planning Using Ecological Modeling

This report describes a land management modeling effort that analyzed potential impacts of proposed actions under an updated Bureau of Land Management Resource Management Plan that will guide management for 20 years on 4.6 million hectares in the Great Basin ecoregion of the United States. State-and-transition models that included vegetation data, fire histories, and many parameters (i.e., rates of succession, fire return intervals, outcomes of management actions, and invasion rates of native and nonnative invasive species) were developed through workshops with scientific experts and range management specialists. Alternative restoration scenarios included continuation of current management, full fire suppression, wildfire use in designated fire use zones, wildfire use in resilient vegetation types only, restoration with a tenfold budget increase, no restoration treatments, and no livestock grazing. Under all the scenarios, cover of vegetation states with native perennial understory declined and was replaced by tree-invaded and weed-dominated states. The greatest differences among alternative management scenarios resulted from the use of fire as a tool to maintain native understory. Among restoration scenarios, only the scenario assuming a tenfold budget increase had a more desirable outcome than the current management scenario. Removal of livestock alone had little effect on vegetation resilience. Rather, active restoration was required. The predictive power of the model was limited by current understanding of Great Basin vegetation dynamics and data needs including statistically valid monitoring of restoration treatments, invasiveness and invasibility, and fire histories. The authors suggest that such computer models can be useful tools for systematic analysis of potential impacts in land use planning. However, for a modeling effort to be productive, the management situation must be conducive to open communication among land management agencies and partner entities, including nonprofit organizations.     

Causasilty among wildfire,ENSO, timber harvest,and urban sprawl: The vector autoregression approach

This article demonstrates the applicability of vector autoregression (VAR) modeling in probing the causality relationships among wildfire, El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), timber harvest, and urban sprawl in the U.S. The VAR approach allows for the multi-directional, multi-faceted interactions among the variables concerned and enables us to portray the temporal impacts of ENSO, the volume of timber harvested, and urban sprawl on wildfire. The empirical analysis, though intended mainly for illustration, reveals that an individual factor may not affect wildfire activity (number of fires and area burned) when acting alone, but can significantly influence fire activity when coupled with other factors, and that wildfire activity has feedback effects on other variables. The impact of a change in ENSO, the volume of timber harvested, and urban population density on wildfire activity could last two decades with the most noticeable impact occurring in the initial 5–10 years. Though ENSO, timber harvest, and urban sprawl all Granger-cause wildfire activity, the impulse response functions show that wildfire activity is more responsive to urban population density than to the volume of timber harvested or ENSO. Thus, controlling urban sprawl represents another option for wildfire mitigation; and integrative wildfire management is essential.