Webinar: Economic Perspectives on Wildfire: Preparation, Property, and Health

These wildfires impose both high financial and social costs that include lost forest resources, property and infrastructure losses, disaster relief, lost business activity in affected communities, and increased medical costs.

With an eye toward better understanding the economic aspects of wildfires, C-FARE will host a webinar entitled “Economic Perspectives on Wildfire: Preparation, Property, and Health” on November 16, 2020. This session, co-organized with the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE), will feature a panel of three economists whose expertise centers on wildfires. Our speakers include Drs. Matthew Wibbenmeyer (Resources for the Future), Patty Champ (United States Forest Service), and Eric Zou (University of Oregon). They will be talking about topics that include the breadth of wildfire costs; how communities can better prepare to face wildfire risks; and the contributions of wildfire to increased mortality through smoke exposure, sometimes over surprisingly large distances. I will host the webinar, and Dr. Karen Palmer, AERE President-Elect, will moderate the panel and field audience questions.

There has been no shortage of discussion of how public land management should change in the face of this increased fire risk, and there is renewed interest in issues such as mandatory wildfire risk disclosures for home sales and the role of electrical utilities in managing risk. Some things that I am particularly interested in hearing our panelists’ thoughts on is how key markets such as real estate, insurance, and forest-based resources are likely to evolve in the coming years, as well as their thoughts on what households and businesses in affected areas should be doing now to adapt to increasingly fire-friendly conditions. Please join us at 12 pm EST on Monday, November 16 if you are also interested in hearing more.

— Sean Cash, Tufts University

 

The threat of wildfires has become an increasingly large challenge faced by many Americans and as of October 1, over 44,000 wildfires have burned nearly 7.7 million acres in the United States this year.

This growing threat is in part due to increasing temperatures and changing weather conditions that are making the fires far more difficult to control and easier to spread…

REGISTER HERE: Economic Perspectives on Wildfire: Preparation, Property, and Health on November 16th, at 12 pm.