High Public Expenditures on Wildfire Protection

High Public Expenditures on Wildfire Protection
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High Public Expenditures on Wildfire Protection
Summary
Patrick Baylis and Judson Boomhower focus on the issue of the state and federal governments’ large public expenditures on preventing wildfires. Recently, wildfire has been a significant problem in the United States (US). The primary factor that contributes to this problem is climate change (Abatzoglou & Williams, 2016). There have been prolonged periods of dryness, increased temperature, and low precipitation. As such, it fosters the drying of plants in forests such that when a fire ignites it can become difficult to control. The authors analyzed data from various credible sources, including the National Park Service (NPS), the US Forest Service (USFS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) (Baylis & Boomhower, 2019). They concluded that the high cost of wildfires is attributed to the protection of private assets, particularly homes built nearby forests.
How the Authors Approach the Problem
Baylis and Boomhower approach the problem by considering the government expenditure on natural hazards in the US. These researchers found that the federal government spent over double on wildfire protection over the last three decades, and the cost is likely to keep increasing (Baylis & Boomhower, 2019). Notably, the authors wanted to understand why wildfires are costly to prevent. During wildfire season, millions of dollars are used by thousands of firefighters throughout the US to get appropriate resources. Additionally, the government spends more money to prevent damage to private homes. In that light, avoiding property damage from wildfires takes a large percentage of the funds kept aside to prevent this disaster. Although the state and federal governments are the ones who cater to the damage of wildfires, homeowners and localities decide how and where to build their houses.
Data Used
The authors combined administrative data on firefighting expenditures from state and federal agencies. Some of the s...