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The Effect of Newspaper Coverage and Political Pressure on Wildfire Suppression Costs

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/08941921003649482

1521-0723

Geoffrey H. Donovan, Jeffrey P. Prestemon, Krista M. Gebert,

Risk Perception and Management

Controlling wildfire suppression expenditures has become a major public policy concern in the United States. However, most policy remedies have focused on the biophysical determinants of suppression costs: fuel loads and weather, for example. We show that two non-biophysical variables—newspaper coverage and political pressure—have a significant effect on wildfire suppression costs. Hausman tests showed that newspaper coverage and fire size were endogenous, so regression models were estimated using two-stage least squares. We suggest a number of non-biophysical policy remedies that may be able to reduce wildfire suppression expenditures more cost-effectively than traditional biophysical remedies such as fuel management.