Assessing the benefits of reducing fire risk in the wildland-urban interface: A contingent valuation approach

Wildland-urban interface (WUI) residents in Michigan were interviewed using a contingent valuation protocol to assess their willingness-to-pay (WTP) f or incremental reductions in the risk of losing their homes to wildfire. WT P was elicited using a probability model which segments the risk of structu re loss into "public" and "private" components. Most respondents expressed positive WTP for publicly funded risk reduction activities. These respondents were characterized by tolerance for property taxes, perception of significant risk, high ranking of fire risk relative t o other hazards, and high objective estimates of existing risk, and their W TP amounts were positively correlated with income and property value. Given that 97% of the respondents were insured against property loss, the large number of positive WTP responses suggests that substantial non-market and u nreimbursed losses are experienced when structures are destroyed by wildfir es.