Abstract: Despite the growing impacts, interest and investment in wildfire traditional economic tools such as cost modeling, cost benefit analysis, and cost effectiveness have played a relatively limited role in informing wildfire management. High levels of uncertainty associated with a dynamic fire environment, variation in fire weather across space and time, disagreement around priorities and values that are impacted by wildfire, and the design and culture of organizations charged with implementing wildfire management make risk management a more appropriate framework for implementing and understanding wildfire management decision making. This is not to suggest that economics is not important, it plays a critical role in informing many aspects of the risk management cycle. In this presentation, I will discuss some of the challenges applying economics and highlight some of the key concepts that are helping us better understand the challenges and opportunities of wildfire management.

Presenter: Dave is a supervisory research forester at the Human Dimensions Program of the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, Montana.  He co-leads the Wildfire Risk Management Science team (https://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/groups/wildfire-risk-management-team) working to improve risk based fire management decision making through improved science development, application, and delivery.   His research incorporates economics with risk and decision sciences to explore ways to evaluate and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of wildfire management programs.  

In 2023 Dave received the Ember Award from the International Association of Wildland Fire for sustained achievement in wildfire research.  He received a BS in applied math from the University of Virginia, an MS in natural resources conservation from the University of Montana, and a PhD in Economics from Oregon State University.