Agencies prioritize wildfire risk reduction where risks are salient – not necessarily where they are the most significant

Based on Matthew Wibbenmeyer, Sarah Anderson and Andrew Plantinga. 2019. “Salience and the Government Provision of Public Goods.” Economic Inquiry; and Sarah Anderson et al. 2018. “The Dangers of Disaster-Driven Responses to Climate Change.” Nature Climate Change.

Governments rely on public input to allocate scarce wildfire risk efforts, but community demands can lead to an inefficient distribution of fuel treatment projects – often prioritizing lower-risk areas that recently experienced a wildfire.

The Policy Problem

With climate change making wildfires more severe, federal agencies estimate that nearly 100 million acres of land are at high risk for wildfire. But in fiscal year 2018, for example, the government only treated approximately 3 million acres to reduce risk. Given these capacity constraints, it is particularly important that land managers target fuel treatment efficiently: investing scarce resources in the places with the highest wildfire risk. A concern is that forest managers instead prioritize fuel treatments for places that have just had a fire – where the short-term fire risk is now lower. When communities with recent fire experiences demand additional fuel treatments, this also generates incentives for fire suppression - a maladaptive response that can lead to fuel build-up and, eventually, more severe fires.

Key Findings and Proposed Solutions

  • When communities are paying attention to wildfire, they are more likely to lobby government agencies for fuel treatment projects.

  • This biases the distribution of wildfire fuel management projects. Fuel treatments go disproportionately to places that have recently had a wildfire – not the places with the highest short-term wildfire risks.

  • Agencies should consider should consider insulating the distribution process from community demands and emphasizing objective risk measures.

  • Agencies should channel community attention to longer-term projects, like land use planning, home retrofitting, and evacuation planning.