Js. Fried et al., Assessing the benefits of reducing fire risk in the wildland-urban interface: A contingent valuation approach, INT J WILDL, 9(1), 1999, pp. 9-20
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.