Large wildland fires can disrupt communities located near the fires and have lasting socioeconomic consequences. This project will help land managers and policy makers better understand, anticipate, and plan for the local economic effects of wildfires. Our goal is to provide information to decision-makers that will assist them in making management and policy decisions that support local economies by minimizing the negative economic effects of wildfire. We posit that wildland fires may affect local economies through two pathways: direct negative effects from reduced economic activity (e.g., resource management, tourism, and supporting industries) and direct positive effects from economic activity generated through fire suppression contracting. Wildfires may also result in future local economic benefits from recovery and economic development efforts such as biomass utilization from fire hazard reduction projects. However, local economies only experience direct positive effects if fire suppression contracting is awarded locally and future benefits are only possible if the fire stimulates, rather than stops, economic development efforts associated with recovery or prevention of future fires. We will ask three main questions: 1) What are the effects of large wildland fires on local economies?, 2) How does fire suppression contracting mediate those effects?, and 3) How do large wildland fires affect local economic development efforts, especially those associated with biomass utilization associated with fire hazard reduction? This proposal is being developed in response to the 2009 RFA Task Statement J, which focuses on re-measurement of conditions before and after large fires that occurred in 2008. We will answer these interconnected research questions using both quantitative and qualitative data that considers economic and social conditions before and after wildfires in a subset of continental US counties in which large wildfires burned in 2008. We will used a mixed methods approach relying on econometric panel analysis of the impacts of large fires on county level labor markets and a case study analysis of Trinity County, California. The case study analysis will reassess the bridges and barriers to biomass utilization efforts following large fires in the County in the summer of 2008. A related JFSP study assessed the bridges and barriers to biomass utilization in Trinity County prior to the fires in the Spring of 2008. We will use our findings to help educate policy makers, land mangers, community organizations, and wildfire scholars through a strategic outreach effort focused on the local economic effects of existing national fire policy and management. Outreach will occur through strategic dissemination that includes full technical reports for managers, policy makers, and other stakeholders; briefing papers and presentations targeted to key stakeholders; a website describing the project rationale, data sources, and key findings; and peer reviewed articles and presentations for scholarly audiences.