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The Relationship between Well-Being and Wildfire

Pamela Kaval, John Loomis

Abstract


In this study, the well-being evaluation method, a technique for measuring individual utility, was used to study how people in the wildland urban interface of Colorado (USA) felt about their lives before and after two hypothetical wildfire scenarios. Variables such as age, family size, fire frequency, and property value were found to affect initial well-being levels. However, if a wildfire were to occur, many variables that initially affected well-being were no longer significant. It was found that after wildfire, the frequency of wildfire occurrence became the most important influence on well-being. These results have several implications for wildfire managers. The first is that the well-being of Colorado wildland urban interface residents would be enhanced by a reduction in the frequency of highintensity wildfires. The second is that an extremely high percentage of respondents were in favor of prescribed burning. Therefore, the reduction of high-intensity fires could not only be accomplished by conducting a rotation of prescribed fires, but that prescribed burning would be accepted by the public living in the wildland urban interface.

Keywords


Well-being evaluation method, Colorado, happiness, wildland urban interface, wildfire intensity

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