Forest Fires: Why the Large Year-to-Year Variation in Forests Burned?

Jay Apt, Dennis Epple and Fallaw Sowell

No 10679, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Quantifying factors giving rise to temporal variation in forest fires is important for advancing scientific understanding and improving fire prevention. We demonstrate that eighty percent of the large year-to-year variation in forest area burned in California can be accounted for by variation in temperature, precipitation, housing construction, electricity transmission, and ocean surface temperatures in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Equatorial Pacific. California is of particular interest because of its large acreage burned and proximity of fires to human populations. We believe our model is the first unified treatment of climatic factors and human activities that affect forest area burned.

Keywords: forest fires; climate; human activities; ocean surface temperatures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H Q20 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
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Working Paper: Forest Fires: Why The Large Year-to-Year Variation in Forests Burned? (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10679

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