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The costs of wildfire management have escalated in the past decade, largely due to increased expenditures for suppressing large wildfires. Frequent siege-like fire incidents have up enormous costs in loss of life, property, and natural resources. Additionally, there is growing recognition of the futility of fighting fires in ecosystems where prior fire exclusion policies have led to dangerous fuel accumulations. This is also true in countries like Argentina, Chile, Spain, Canada, Australia and Central America countries like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Colombia, with significant wildland fire problems. In the Caribbean basin countries like Cuba and the Dominican Republic are also experiencing similar situations. In Puerto Rico for the first time in 2005 there were large wildland-urban interface fires in the Municipio of Mayagüez.
Political and social pressures, such as those encountered in urban interface and multiple-use areas complicate recent shifts in agency philosophies toward managing sustainable ecosystems. The economic consequences of alternative management strategies are poorly understood. Cost-effectiveness comparison between prescribed fire and other treatments are compounded by analytical difficulties. Expenditures on large fires may bear little relation to values at risk. Current analysis tools for justifying budgets and displaying tradeoffs rarely incorporate consideration of all relevant contributors to fire management costs and net value changes. Outside of North America (Canada and USA), and most recently Spain very little work has been done on analyzing the economic consequences of alternative fire management strategies. Many countries have recently recognized the need for the economic analysis of their wildland fire management investments. However, few have developed the necessary tools to perform this work.
In the USA numerous reports have recognized the importance of optimizing fire management costs, yet progress toward this end has been slow, uncertain and elusive. Recommendations contained in several fire policy reviews following the disastrous 1994 fire season, and more recently the 1998, 2000, and 2003 fire seasons suggest a clear need for a forum in which policy makers, natural resource managers, and fire managers and practitioners can exchange ideas and learn from mutual concerns and experiences.
In the spring of 2004, the second International symposium on Fire Economics, Planning, and Policy: A world view was held in Córdoba, Spain to address the issues outlined here. Since then, disastrous events in the 2003, 2004 and 2005 fire seasons have exacerbated the problem. Many changes in policy have taken place in response to the new challenges. There is the need again to bring together the community of wildland fire agencies managers and practitioners, natural resource managers, researchers, foresters, economists, students and policy makers to discuss recent problems, experiences and responses to the wildland fire problematic. The purpose of the proposed symposium is 1) to bring together individuals interested in exchanging ideas regarding the economics, planning and policies of wildland fire management, 2) sharing the most recent developments and technologies for optimizing fire management expenditures, 3) exploring the tradeoffs between hazardous fuels treatments and wildland fire use, and suppression expenditures, and 4) sharing recent developments in strategic fire planning models.
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