Priorities and Effectiveness in Wildfire Management: Evidence from Fire Spread in the Western United States

Costs offighting wildfires have increased substantially over the past severaldecades. Yet surprisingly little is known about the effectiveness of wildfire suppressionor how wildfire incident managers prioritize resources threatened within a wildfire in-cident. We investigate the determinants of wildfire suppression effort using a novelempirical strategy comparing over 1,400 historicalfire perimeters to the spatial dis-tribution of assets at risk. Wefind thatfires are more likely to stop spreading as theyapproach homes, particularly when homes are of greater value. This effect persists aftercontrolling for physical factors (fuels, landscape, and weather) using a state-of-the-artwildfire simulation tool. As well, the probability that spread will be halted is affectedby characteristics of homes 1–2 kilometers beyond afire’s edge. Overall, wefind thatsuppression efforts can substantively affect wildfire outcomes but that some groups maybenefit more from wildfire management than others.