[MCN] If our leaders really wanted to protect homes from fire, ...

[Lance Olsen]

“Potential Jobs and Wages from Investments in Defensible-Space Approaches to Wildfire Safety”:
http://nreconomics.com/reports/2018-04-28_EnvNow_Report.pdf <http://nreconomics.com/reports/2018-04-28_EnvNow_Report.pdf>
 
The study by Ernie Niemi of Natural Resource Economics found that rural communities can create more jobs with better wages by focusing wildfire-related resources on supporting fire-safe modifications around houses rather than by subsidizing logging.
 
When the timber and biomass power industries seek to steer federal and state funding intended to address wildfire safety into subsidizing logging (”thinning”) projects, these industries try to garner support from rural communities by presenting logging as a source of jobs. 

However, because the timber and biomass industries have become increasingly mechanized and automated, money spent to subsidize logging is not a very efficient job creator. An alternate approach to wildfire safety is to focus on activities that directly protect homes from fire. 

These activities involve work creating fire-safe conditions in the defensible space zone next to homes and installing fire-safe materials on homes (such as appropriate roofing and screens over vents). However, the job creation benefits from defensible space work are often not considered during wildfire policy discussions.  Yet, rural communities can actually experience greater job benefits per dollar invested when government funding is directed to defensible space work.
 
In the new study, economist Ernie Niemi found that “Total jobs under the defensible-space approach would exceed the total jobs under the forest-altering [logging] approach by a ratio of 2.3-to-1. For direct jobs, the ratio would be even higher, 3.4-to-1.”  He also found that defensible space work would create better paying jobs--“Workers’ wages under the defensible-space approach would exceed the wages under the forest-altering approach by a ratio of 1.4-to-1 for all workers and by 1.8-to-1 for workers directly employed by the contractors.”
 
As the study concludes, “In sum, investment in defensible-space activities can provide not just wildfire-safety benefits but also significant job-creation benefits for rural communities in California. Moreover, the information currently available indicates that, in many circumstances, the same level of spending likely will yield more jobs and wages for local workers under the defensible-space approach than under the forest-altering approach.”
 
If you are interested in helping to spread word about this study via social media, please consider retweeting this:
https://twitter.com/dicapriofdn/status/994627574952353792 <https://twitter.com/dicapriofdn/status/994627574952353792>
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"The big challenge is still to deliver emissions reductions at the pace and scale needed, especially in a world where economies are driven by consumption.”

Sonja van Renssen.The inconvenient truth of failed climate policies. Nature Climate Change  MAY 2018

Published online: 27 April 2018 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0155-4 

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