Assessing wildfire risk reduction through fuel treatments and educational activities

Abstract

Hazardous forest fuel reduction and prevention education are key strategies for reducing wildfire risk. While fuel reduction efforts have become a shared goal of many agencies, the cost of implementing them remains a significant challenge. Increasing biomass utilization can be a strategy for reducing these costs. Yet little is known about the impact of wood manufacturing facilities on fuel treatment activities. Additionally, human activities cause nearly 84% of wildfires, often leading to rapid spread and severe impacts, including health issues, environmental damage, suppression expenditures, degraded air and water quality. As such, evaluating the effectiveness of educational prevention activities is crucial at reducing undesirable human-caused ignitions and enhancing cost-effectiveness of wildfire management. This study examines two interrelated research objectives related to wildfire risk reduction: (1) the impacts of forest market proximity on fuel treatment activities in National Forests (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Colorado, and (2) the effectiveness of wildfire prevention education (WPE) in reducing undesirable human-caused ignitions on tribal lands in the U.S. To address objective 1, we developed a mixed linear model using fuel treatment data (n = 779 BLM sites and n = 9,709 USFS sites), the location of active wood manufacturing facilities, and climatic variables from 2012 to 2020. We found that proximity to facilities significantly impacts treatment activities, with sites relatively closer in proximity treating more acres and utilizing more biomass than those further away, in both BLM and USFS lands. Additionally, we identified a threshold of 70 minutes beyond which proximity had no significant effect on fuel treatment on both lands. To address objective 2, we employed Poisson regression by using seven categories of monthly WPE activities (mass media coverage, signage placements, programs/events, individual/key-personnel contacts, community contacts, brochures, hazard assessments), wildfire ignitions, acres burned, and climatic factors across 35 U.S. tribal units from 2012 to 2020. After controlling for potential endogeneity biases, the Poisson model revealed that certain WPE activities, such as community contacts, significantly reduced ignitions caused by debris and open burning, fireworks, fire misuse by minors, power generation, recreation/ceremony, firearms/explosives and smoking. Hazard assessments were marginally significant, whereas individual/key-personnel contacts, informational brochures, and programs/events were negatively related to fire ignitions. In contrast, media coverage and signage had no significant effect, although the lagged six-month aggregates showed a significant and negative effect on the number of ignitions. Our findings underscore the role of strategic planning of well-distributed wood-processing facilities for optimizing fuel treatment costs and the importance of continued WPE efforts to reduce human-caused ignitions.