From 2005 to 2020, nearly 60,000 structures were destroyed by wildfires in California — comprising 67% of the 89,210 structures to burn in the entire U.S. during that time, according to Headwaters Economics.
Headwaters Associate Director Kelly Pohl says those factors can add to the impact of wildfires, which are becoming more severe and frequent due to climate change.
“Wildfire smoke and environmental stress can exacerbate existing medical conditions, which are more common among the elderly, the disabled and people living in poverty,” Pohl said.
Less than 10% of the total expenses incurred by wildfires are related to suppression, which is generally paid for by state and federal government, according to a report by Headwaters Economics, a think tank. The rest of the cost is from long-term, local rebuilding efforts such as road repairs, watershed restoration and home reconstruction. “All the costs, on all fronts, are going up,” said Kimiko Barrett, who researches community wildfire planning and policy at Headwaters Economics.
The nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics analyzed each county’s susceptibility to fire and smoke, but also socioeconomic information about residents, including age, race, income level, and English proficiency.
Nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics found that more than half the residents living in fire-prone areas are Black, Indigenous or people of color.
Headwaters analyzed the risks of fire and smoke for each county in America, as well as information about residents – including age, race, income level and English proficiency.
New Mexico is “well-positioned” to diversify uses of state land and reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, per a recent study published Tuesday.
Much of the action that would go the furthest toward reducing wildfire risk is outside the scope of federal authority, according to Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire policy expert at Headwaters Economics, a consulting group in Montana.
A 2018 study by the research group Headwaters Economics found that eight national monuments that had been redesignated as national parks saw their attendance increase by an average of 21 percent within five years. Since then, lawmakers have embraced the idea.
“We haven’t done it yet because it’s expensive,” said Megan Lawson, an economist at the land-use nonprofit Headwaters Economics.
She said depending on where you’re talking about burying lines, the cost could be five or 10 times the cost of wiring them above ground. But despite the upfront cost, in some places it still might make sense.
“We also need to be looking at the intensity and frequency of a lot of these natural disasters is increasing,” Lawson said.
Megan Lawson of Headwaters Economics points out that a family shut out of Arches is naturally going to scramble to find a nearby alternative. “They’re going to use Google and find another destination,” she said, “so we need to anticipate those pressures on surrounding public lands.”
“The increasing distance between the wealthy and least wealthy is getting more and more dramatic,” said Megan Lawson, an economist at Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Mont.
So on a grand scale, experts interviewed for this story say public money may be better spent toward “hardening” existing homes, bringing them up to fire safe building codes, and keeping brush and shrubbery around them cleared out. Of course, every option is expensive. According to the western think tank Headwaters Economics, some 40 million westerners are now living in the potential path of wildfires.
The allure of America’s wide-open spaces, combined with rocketing house prices, has led more people to settle in cheaper, fire-prone areas. Roughly half the population of the American West now lives at “the wildland-urban interface”, according to Headwaters Economics, a think-tank.
“We do actually know how to do things better [now],” says Kimiko Barrett of Headwaters Economics, a land management think tank based in Montana.
After cities such as Chicago and San Francisco burned to the ground in the 19th and early 20th centuries, “we as a society stopped to think about how our cities were built, and our infrastructure, in relation to fire.”
“We can solve this,” Barrett says, using that same all-hands approach today in areas where forests and people increasingly meet.
“We can solve this again.”
“It’s a great first step,” said Kimiko Barrett, a researcher and policy analyst at Headwaters Economics, a wildfire policy consulting nonprofit in Montana. “We need to start looking at creating communities adapted to living with this increasing risk.”
To speed up this process, a Montana-based nonprofit research group called Headwaters Economics has developed a framework that puts to work fitness-tracking apps and internet search frequencies, in addition to trailhead surveys, to get a better handle on how much use specific trails are getting.
Wildfires scorched more than 10 million acres (4 million hectares) of land and almost 18,000 houses and other structures last year, according to federal data and the research group Headwaters Economics.
“We can no longer expect that we’ll be saved from these,” said Kimiko Barrett with Headwaters Economics, adding that firefighters need more pay and support. “We overlook the long-term psychological, physical and emotional well-being of firefighters.”
“Our sense is that it is indeed a more affluent set of folks who are moving,” says Megan Lawson, a Montana-based researcher, statistician, and economist with Headwater Economics. The trend isn’t new and there are competing theories as to the reasons behind it.
“A big piece of it is that moving’s expensive,” Lawson says. People with greater income and wealth have more ability to change locations. “They also have greater cushioning and can handle high costs of living,” she describes.
Kimiko Barrett is the lead wildfire researcher at the Montana think tank Headwaters Economics. She says the wildland-urban interface has been growing since the 1970s. And the pace has picked up as housing costs have skyrocketed and many have looked farther out to find something they could afford.
