Book Description

Wildfire frequency and severity are increasingly important issues in the western United States, as fires threaten lives, properties and outdoor amenities. This dissertation seeks to measure the impact of wildfires in Southern California using nonmarket valuation techniques. In the first essay we employ the hedonic property method to estimate how wildfires affect nearby property values. Using data from 15 years of property sales prices and 20 years of wildfire data, we find that the average impact of a wildfire on housing sales price depends on the market context and whether the event increases, decreases, or does not change prior risk perceptions. This suggests that public policy and availability of risk information can be effective tools in capitalizing wildfire risk in housing markets prior to events. The second essay uses evidence from a choice experiment given to respondents who were intercepted at national forest sites to estimate preferences for environmental attributes of recreation sites. Specifically, the main attribute of interest is fire history, where fire history is given by distinct categories in relation to the dominant vegetation at the site. Using conditional logit, random parameters logit, and latent class models, we find that tree cover, compared to shrubs or barren areas, and water are highly desirable attributes, while evidence of past fires decreases the value of a site. Forest fires that reach the crowns of trees are least desirable, while older forest fires and shrub fires have less of a negative effect. We find evidence of significant preference heterogeneity over the vegetation and fire attributes. The third essay combines revealed preference data from site intercepts and stated preference data from online surveys to estimate the welfare impacts of different fire scenarios at recreation sites. We estimate a multi-site zonal travel cost model of trips to hiking and day use sites in the Angeles National Forest. Stated preference data on reduction in trips to recreation sites under different fire history scenarios are used to calibrate the zonal travel cost model and estimate the welfare impacts of fire. The greatest estimated welfare losses are from recent fires that burn all vegetation as opposed to less intense fires or older fires that have had time to recover. For popular recreation sites, these losses from intense fires can total over $1 million in one summer. Applying this method to a large fire that affected many sites in our study area, we illustrate how losses decrease over time, but can continue well after sites are re-opened due to lasting effects on the landscape.