Burn scars and burnt s'mores: the impact of wildfire on camping demand in the years after a fire occurs

Abstract

While the impacts of wildfire are widely felt and expected to increase in the coming years, less is known about the long-term impacts on recreation sites, specifically campgrounds. Wildfires inhibit the ability of individuals to recreate during wildfire season and subsequent years, due to unsafe conditions as the environment recovers. Changing wildfire suppression strategies may also affect households' ability and desire to recreate. At the same time, the number of individuals recreating is expected to increase in the coming years. As people continue to recreate and fires increase in intensity and frequency, we contribute to the discussion on wildfire's impact on recreation. We evaluate the impact of wildfire on U.S. Forest Service campgrounds in the western United States over the 15 years after a fire occurs. We construct a dataset of camping reservations from 2008-2017 and the percentage of burned area within 10 kilometer of a campground from fires occurring 1984 onward. We find that wildfires significantly decrease reservations up to six years after the fire occurs. The loss in campground utilization from decreases in reservations have negative impacts at the aggregate and local levels. A typical campground experiencing wildfire has 8% of its buffered area burned. Over the 10 years of reservation data that we evaluate, fires impact an average of 60 campgrounds annually. Summing across the affected campgrounds and fires that occur in a typical year suggests the USFS can expect to lose $50,109 in the years after fires occur at treated campgrounds, not accounting for substitution to other campgrounds. Further, we can expect a typical campground treated by fire to lose 59 campers in the six years after fire. We can expect the negative impact to increase as recreation and wildfire risk increase in the future. Depressed spending due to a reduction of campers can negatively impact communities that depend on the influx of visitors during the camping season. Reduced camping in these areas can potentially reduce employment, creating larger income gaps between urban and rural communities.