Balancing Prevention and Suppression of Forest Fires with Fuel Management as a Stock

To study the effects of prevention and suppression on the occurrence of large forest fires, we incorporate the stochasticity of the time of a forest fire into our model and corresponding optimal control problem. In our model, the effects of prevention management spending accumulate over time. Our goal is to determine the optimal combination of the prevention management spending rate over time and one-time suppression spending which would maximize the expected value of a forest. By choosing a hazard function for the random variable for the time of fire, we can convert our stochastic problem into a deterministic problem. We illustrate our results numerically using the 2011 Las Conchas Fire example. Overall, our results support the importance of prevention efforts.

[1]  Hayley Hesseln.  The economics of prescribed burning: a research review. , 2000 .

[2]  William J. Reed,et al.  The conservation and exploitation of vulnerable resources , 1992 .

[3]  D. Lodge,et al.  Take a risk: Preferring prevention over control of biological invaders , 2007 .

[4]  Carl N. Skinner,et al.  Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments , 2005 .

[5]  W. Reed.  Optimal harvesting of a fishery subject [to] random catastrophic collapse , 1988 .

[6]  John Sessions,et al.  Discount Rate for Long-Term Forest Service Investments , 1981, Journal of Forestry.

[7]  James P. Minas,et al.  An integrated optimization model for fuel management and fire suppression preparedness planning , 2013, Annals of Operations Research.

[8]  J. Morgan Varner,et al.  Prescribed fire in North American forests and woodlands: history, current practice, and challenges , 2013 .

[9]  J. Kline.  Issues in Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Fuel Treatments to Reduce Wildfire in the Nation's Forests , 2017 .

[10]  Jeffrey P. Prestemon,et al.  The Economics of Forest Disturbances , 2008 .

[11]  William J. Reed,et al.  Protecting a forest against fire: optimal protection patterns and harvest policies , 1987 .

[12]  P. Hessburg,et al.  Dry forests and wildland fires of the inland Northwest USA: Contrasting the landscape ecology of the pre-settlement and modern eras , 2005 .

[13]  John T. Workman,et al.  Optimal Control Applied to Biological Models , 2007 .

[14]  Robert G. Haight,et al.  Analyzing Trade-Offs Between Fuels Management, Suppression, and Damages from Wildfire , 2008 .

[15]  Makoto Inoue,et al.  Valuing forest ecosystem services: What we know and what we don't , 2013 .

[16]  H. Grissino-Mayer.  Modeling fire interval data from the American southwest with the Weibull distribution , 1999 .

[17]  Jeffrey P. Prestemon,et al.  Comprar The Economics of Forest Disturbances · Wildfires, Storms and Invasive Species | Holmes, Thomas P. | 9781402043697 | Springer , 2008 .

[18]  Bryce J. Stokes,et al.  A strategic assessment of forest biomass and fuel reduction treatments in western states , 2003 .

[19]  J. Shogren,et al.  Managing the Endogenous Risk of Disease Outbreaks with Non-Constant Background Risk. , 2015, Journal of economic dynamics & control.

[20]  Stephen Dovers,et al.  Evaluating benefits and costs of wildland fires: critical review and future applications , 2014 .

[21]  S. Lenhart,et al.  Assessing the economic trade‐offs between prevention and suppression of forest fires , 2018 .

[22]  S. Stephens,et al.  FEDERAL FOREST‐FIRE POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES , 2005 .

[23]  W. Reed,et al.  Consumption/pollution tradeoffs in an environment vulnerable to pollution-related catastrophic collapse , 1994 .

[24]  Eli P. Fenichel,et al.  Economics and Ecology of Managing Emerging Infectious Animal Diseases , 2007 .

[25]  K. Gebert,et al.  Effect of Suppression Strategies on Federal Wildland Fire Expenditures , 2012 .

[26]  William J. Reed,et al.  The effects of the risk of fire on the optimal rotation of a forest , 1984 .

[27]  William J. Reed,et al.  Evaluating the effects of risk on the economics of juvenile spacing and commercial thinning , 1991 .

[28]  D. Mercer,et al.  Evaluating Alternative Prescribed Burning Policies to Reduce Net Economic Damages from Wildfire , 2007 .

[30]  D. Calkin,et al.  Forest service large fire area burned and suppression expenditure trends, 1970-2002 , 2005 .