Presenter: Dr. Kelly Jones, Associate Professor of Ecological Economics with Colorado State University, Human Dimensions of Natural Resources

Collaboratively-funded fuel treatments are becoming more common in the western U.S. to proactively address wildfire impacts. Water utilities often play an important role in these collaborations and are motivated by the significant impact that wildfire has on source water protection. In this webinar, Kelly will present research which provides insight on how the economic returns from proactive wildfire mitigation could be improved. She and her team produced an economic assessment of Denver’s Forests to Faucets partnership, a collaboration which invested >$60 million in wildfire mitigation projects between 2011 and 2019. The research, combining wildfire modeling, sediment modeling, and primary and secondary data on economic values, quantified the impact of the actual investments on multiple values at risk. Large benefits to source water protection and other values at risk resulted from these proactive investments but the benefits only exceed the costs of funding wildfire mitigation under certain conditions.

This webinar is being hosted by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium.