An Econometric Model of Wildfire Suppression Productivity

Jonathan Keith Yoder () and Mariam Lankoande ()
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Mariam Lankoande: School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University

No 2006-10, Working Papers from School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University

Abstract: We estimate a model of suppression productivity for individual fires, where suppression productivity is measured in terms of the reduction in the estimated market value of wildfire losses. Estimation results show that at the margin, every dollar increase in suppression costs reduces resource damage by 12 cents, while each dollar invested in pre-suppression reduces suppression expenditures by 3.76 dollars. These results suggest that there is an over-allocation of fire management funds to suppression activities relative to prevention measures in terms of costeffectiveness. This paper provides an empirical basis for a widely used economic model of wildfire management that seeks to minimize the sum of suppression costs and economic losses from wildfires, the cost plus net value change model of fire suppression (C+NVC).

Keywords: wildfire; suppression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-env
Date: 2006-09
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http://www.ses.wsu.edu/PDFFiles/WorkingPapers/WP_2006-10Suppression.pdf First version, 2006 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: An Econometric Model of Wildfire Suppression Productivity (2006)
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