An April 2018 report from Natural Resource Economics for “Environment Now” entitled, “Potential Jobs and Wages from Investments in Defensible-Space Approaches to Wildfire Safety”, details how a focus on wildfire safety in the urban-wildland interface and not logging of large areas, can create more jobs and wages.  The study was conducted in relation to rural communities in California.    

Some people advocate logging across large forested areas far away from developed areas in an attempt to change the behavior of wildfires before they burn into the urban-wildland interface (where development and forests come together).  This is called the “forest-altering strategy”.  It has been suggested that this strategy creates jobs from logging and sending logs and chips sent to sawmills and biomass fired power plants.

Another strategy is to conduct wildfire safety actions near development.  This strategy is called the “defensible-space strategy”.  Within about 200 feet of buildings, if vegetation is trimmed, shingles on roofs are made of fire-safe materials, fire wood is moved away from a house, gutters are cleaned out, etc., that these actions protect homes from wildfire most of the time.

The report details potential jobs and wages from the two strategies and compares them.  It indicates that when $1 million is spent on the “defensible-space strategy”, 23 total jobs are created.  Seventeen of these direct jobs are created for contractors and workers and 6 indirect jobs are created by the money contractors and employees spend.  The “forest-altering strategy” generates 10 total jobs for $1 million.  The work that the “forest-altering strategy” does has been mechanized so there are fewer jobs created per $1 million spent.  

The “defensible-space strategy” exceeds the “forest-altering strategy” in total jobs by a 2.3:1 ratio and for direct jobs by a 3.4:1 ratio.  The total wages from spending $1 million are $560,000 for the “defensible-space strategy” and $390,000 for the “forest-altering strategy”.      

Information for this article was taken from the report, “Potential Jobs and Wages from investments in Defensible-Space Approaches to Wildfire Safety”.

Brandt Mannchen   

May 17, 2018