A prescribed fire cost model for public lands in south-east Queensland

Eliott, Martyn; Venn, Tyron J.; Lewis, Tom; Farrar, Michael B.; Srivastava, Sanjeev K.

doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102579

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 74 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Widely studied drivers of cost are mostly consistent with the findings from our empirical analysis. The influence of the size of the burned area on costs is borne out in our results, and this economy of scale is supported broadly in the literature (Hesseln 2000; Mercer et al 2007; Eliott et al 2021). As prescribed fires increase in size, the cost of another acre burned is minimal; however, more individual fires are positively correlated with costs.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…Economic rationality dictates that costs of applying, whether in the form of labor, capital, or land, should result in tangible benefits such as higher productivity, avoidance of production losses, and labor or other cost savings in order to be of interest to the rangeland owners ( Winpenny 1996 ). On the basis of this theoretical foundation, we adopted a regression-based cost function ( Marchionni et al 2014 ;Eliott et al 2021 ) for our analysis. In doing so, prescribed burn cost was assumed to be affected by land characteristics, fire frequency, proportion of the prescribed fire cost components, and sociodemographic attributes.…”

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In doing so, prescribed burn cost was assumed to be affected by land characteristics, fire frequency, proportion of the prescribed fire cost components, and sociodemographic attributes. Consistent with previous work ( Eliott et al 2021 ), a generalized regression model was empirically investigated.…”

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prescribed fire cost models are somewhat limited in the literature, although there are examples of economic studies of prescribed fire concerning both public (Hesseln 2000) and private land management (Van Liew et al 2012). Recently, Eliott et al (2021) developed a prescribed fire model in Australia in which a regression-based approach was used to explore the factors that may influence prescribed fire costs. The Australian prescribed cost model was empirically based on the tenets of production function theory (Nicholson 1995).…”

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Analysis of the Cost and Cost Components of Conducting Prescribed Fires in the Great Plains

Watts,

Russell,

Adhikari

et al. 2024

Rangeland Ecology & Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Analysis of the Cost and Cost Components of Conducting Prescribed Fires in the Great Plains

Watts,

Russell,

Adhikari

et al. 2024

Rangeland Ecology & Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Consequently, there is an increased need for intervention to reduce the risk of intense wildfires developing from ignition events occurring during fire-favourable weather conditions by reducing the available ground-level fuels [30,31]. Fuel load reductions primarily using controlled hazard reduction burns have long been used as the primary method of mitigating this risk [32,33], but in commercial forestry, fuel load management can also be in the form of chemical or mechanical reduction [5,34]. Fuel reduction burns to reduce the amount of available understory fuel by burning during the cooler seasons, with the aim being to reduce understory volume and alter the understory structure without damaging the tree crowns of taller vegetation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Approach to Estimate Fuel Budget and Wildfire Hazard Assessment in Commercial Plantations Using Drone-Based Photogrammetry and Image Analysis

Penglase,

Lewis,

Srivastava

2023

Remote Sensing

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Increased demand for sustainable timber products has resulted in large investments in agroforestry in Australia, with plantations growing various Pinus species, selected to suit a plantation’s environment. Juvenile Pinus species have a low fire tolerance. With Australia’s history of wildfires and the likelihood of climate change exacerbating that risk, the potential for a total loss of invested capital is high unless cost-effective targeted risk minimisation is part of forest management plans. Based on the belief that the understory profiles within the juvenile plantations are a major factor determining fuel hazard risks, an accurate assessment of these profiles is required to effectively mitigate those risks. At present, assessment protocols are largely reliant on ground-based observations, which are labour-intensive, time consuming, and expensive. This research project investigates the effectiveness of using geospatial analysis of drone-derived photographic data collected in the commercial pine plantations of south-eastern Queensland as a cost-saving alternative to current fuel hazard risk assessment practices. Understory composition was determined using the supervised classification of orthomosaic images together with derivations of canopy height models (CHMs). The CHMs were subjected to marker-controlled watershed segmentation (MCWS) analysis, isolating and removing the plantation pine trees, enabling the quantification of understory fuel profiles. The method used proved highly applicable to immature forest environments with minimal canopy closure, but became less reliable for close canopied older plantations.

show abstract

Estimated Impacts of Prescribed Fires on Air Quality and Premature Deaths in Georgia and Surrounding Areas in the US, 2015–2020

Maji,

Li,

Vaidyanathan

et al. 2024

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Smoke from wildfires poses a substantial threat to health in communities near and far. To mitigate the extent and potential damage of wildfires, prescribed burning techniques are commonly employed as land management tools; however, they introduce their own smoke-related risks. This study investigates the impact of prescribed fires on daily average PM 2.5 and maximum daily 8-h averaged O 3 (MDA8-O 3 ) concentrations and estimates premature deaths associated with short-term exposure to prescribed fire PM 2.5 and MDA8-O 3 in Georgia and surrounding areas of the Southeastern US from 2015 to 2020. Our findings indicate that over the study domain, prescribed fire contributes to average daily PM 2.5 by 0.94 ± 1.45 μg/m 3 (mean ± standard deviation), accounting for 14.0% of year-round ambient PM 2.5 . Higher average daily contributions were predicted during the extensive burning season (January−April): 1.43 ± 1.97 μg/m 3 (20.0% of ambient PM 2.5 ). Additionally, prescribed burning is also responsible for an annual average increase of 0.36 ± 0.61 ppb in MDA8-O 3 (approximately 0.8% of ambient MDA8-O 3 ) and 1.3% (0.62 ± 0.88 ppb) during the extensive burning season. We estimate that short-term exposure to prescribed fire PM 2.5 and MDA8-O 3 could have caused 2665 (95% confidence interval (CI): 2249−3080) and 233 (95% CI: 148−317) excess deaths, respectively. These results suggest that smoke from prescribed burns increases the mortality. However, refraining from such burns may escalate the risk of wildfires; therefore, the trade-offs between the health impacts of wildfires and prescribed fires, including morbidity, need to be taken into consideration in future studies.

show abstract

A prescribed fire cost model for public lands in south-east Queensland

Cited by 4 publications

References 74 publications

Analysis of the Cost and Cost Components of Conducting Prescribed Fires in the Great Plains

Analysis of the Cost and Cost Components of Conducting Prescribed Fires in the Great Plains

A New Approach to Estimate Fuel Budget and Wildfire Hazard Assessment in Commercial Plantations Using Drone-Based Photogrammetry and Image Analysis

Estimated Impacts of Prescribed Fires on Air Quality and Premature Deaths in Georgia and Surrounding Areas in the US, 2015–2020

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About