| Popis: |
Housing markets near forests and wildland should capitalize into prices the value of forest amenities such as recreational opportunities, attractive scenery, and clean air. The expanding wildland-urban interface has made wildfire a frequently discussed and contentious public policy issue over the past decade. As residential communities expand into natural areas, more lives and property are placed at risk of death and destruction from wildfire. Housing markets are impacted by both the mere presence of fire risk as well as the damage to forest amenities and property that accompanies a wildfire. The purpose of this research is to empirically identify these responses. A data set comprised of residential housing sales from 1992-1996 in Chelan County, Washington was used to determine how the market responded to the 1994 fires in the Wenatchee National Forest that burned over 180,000 acres. The results indicate a decrease in the willingness to pay to live near the burned area for a six-month period in early 1995. There is no change in the willingness to pay to live near areas of relatively higher fire risk defined by higher fuel levels, which can be interpreted as a lack of support for collective protective measures that would reduce fuels. Additionally, the hedonic price for a fire-resistant roof increases gradually for 18 months before dropping to pre-fire levels in the second half of 1996. This result indicates that the subjective or perceived risk of property damage from wildfire behaved in a similar fashion and suggests either a risk threshold below which the household disregards the risk of fire or a general lack of awareness of risk. |
