Citation

Sisante AM, Taylor MH, Rollins KS. Int. J. Wildland Fire 2019; 28(11): 901-911.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, International Association of Wildland Fire, Fire Research Institute, Publisher CSIRO Publishing)

DOI

10.1071/WF18201

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article analyses homeowners' decisions to undertake fire-safe investments and create defensible space on their property using a unique dataset from 35 wildland-urban interface communities in Nevada. The dataset combines homeowner information from a mail survey with their observed fire-safe investments obtained through parcel-level hazard assessments. We find that homeowners' self-reported mitigation expenditures are driven by their subjective beliefs about their wildfire risk, whereas observed defensible space status is driven by their costs of investment. We develop a theoretical model of a homeowner's fire-safe investment decision that accounts for our empirical results.

Additional keywords: economics, natural disasters, policy, uncertainty, wildland-urban interface.

Language: en