The Relationship between Well-Being and Wildfire

Pamela Kaval ()

Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato

Abstract: In this study, the well-being evaluation method, a technique for measuring individual utility, was used to study how people in the wildland urban interface of Colorado (USA) felt about their lives before and after two hypothetical wildfire scenarios. Variables such as age, family size, fire frequency, and property value were found to affect initial well-being levels. However, if a wildfire were to occur, many variables that initially affected well-being were no longer significant. It was found that after wildfire, the frequency of wildfire occurrence became the most important influence on well-being. These results have several implications for wildfire managers. First, the well-being of Colorado wildland urban interface residents would be enhanced by a reduction in the frequency of high-intensity wildfires. Secondly, an extremely high percentage of respondents were in favor of prescribed burning. Therefore, the reduction of high-intensity fires could not only be accomplished by conducting a rotation of prescribed fires, but that prescribed burning would be accepted by the public living in the wildland urban interface.

Keywords: well-being evaluation method; Colorado; happiness; wildland urban interface; wildfire intensity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I39 Q27 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2006-10-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
Note: Forthcoming "International Journal of Ecological Economics and Statistics"
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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