The costs and benefits of fire management for carbon mitigation in Alaska through 2100

Abstract

Climate change is intensifying fire regimes across boreal regions, and thus both burned area and carbon emissions from combustion are expected to increase significantly over the next several decades. Fire management through initial suppression of fires is effective at reducing burned area, but limited work has addressed the role that fire management can play in reducing wildfire carbon emissions and their impacts on climate change. In this work, we draw on historical data covering fire and fire management in Alaska to project burned area and management outcomes to 2100. We allow management to both respond to and impact variations in annual burned area and carbon emissions, while keeping decadal-average burned area at or above historical levels. The total cost of a fire is calculated as the combination of management expenditures and the social cost of carbon emissions during combustion, using the Social Cost of Carbon framework. Incorporating the tradeoff between management expenditures and burned area, we project that by 2100, increasing management effort by 5-10 times relative to current expenditures would minimize combined management and emissions costs. This is driven by the finding that the social costs of carbon emissions greatly exceed management costs unless burned area is constrained to near the average historical level. Our analysis does not include the many health, economic, and non-CO2 climate impacts from fires, so we likely underestimate the benefits of increased fire suppression and thus the optimal management level. As fire regimes continue to intensify, our work suggests increased management expenditures will be necessary to counteract increasing carbon combustion and lower overall climate impact.