Homeowner Preferences for Wildfire Risk Mitigation in the Alaskan Wildland Urban Interface

Allen Molina, Joseph Little, Stacy Drury and Randi Jandt
Additional contact information
Allen Molina: School of Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 201 Bunnell Building, Fairbanks, AK 99705, USA
Joseph Little: W. A. Franke College of Business, Northern Arizona University, 101 E. McConnell Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA
Stacy Drury: Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service 1731 Research Park Drive, Davis, CA 95618, USA
Randi Jandt: International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2160 N. Koyukuk Drive, Fairbanks, AK 99705, USA

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-11

Abstract: Wildfire has become a larger threat to human life and property with the proliferation of homes into the wildland urban interface and warming climate. In this study we explored Alaskan homeowner preferences for wildfire risk mitigation in the wildland urban interface using discrete choice experiments to better understand the drivers of their risk mitigation actions. Estimates of willingness-to-pay for private mitigation actions are increased with wildfire risk reduction for all respondents. Willingness-to-pay for private mitigation is also positively associated with the presence of thinned fuel treatments on nearby public lands, but is estimated to decrease if cleared fuel treatments are present on public lands. Our study concludes that homeowners minimize wildfire risk while maintaining neighborhood amenity values. Additionally, findings suggest that there is an optimal amount of neighborhood participation to motivate individual risk mitigation actions, as well as having a say in the mitigation actions on public lands.

Keywords: choice experiment; non-market valuation; willingness to pay; survey; wildfire economics; hazardous fuels; subjective risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11754/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11754/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:11754-:d:663822

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().