Abstract
In the past century, wildfires have become more frequent and extensive in the Great Basin region of the United States due to factors like drought, overgrazing, and the spread of invasive species. Consequently, there is a growing imperative for land managers to adopt cost-effective methods to mitigate wildfire impacts. Fuel breaks are designated areas where existing vegetation is cleared or altered to create barriers that aid in containing fires more efficiently by reducing available fuel sources. Vegetative linear fuel breaks provide added benefits such as forage for grazing and erosion control. In the northern Great Basin, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) intends to establish linear fuel breaks spanning hundreds of miles to enhance fire management efforts and minimize the risk of roadside fire ignition. Despite this initiative, there remains notable gaps in the literature regarding costs of wildfire in the Great Basin and rangelands in general with most of the literature focusing on forest fire. Additionally, there is scant literature assessing the effectiveness of linear fuel breaks in rangeland wildfire management and the impact of linear fuel breaks on overall fire size which is necessary for assessing of the economic benefits of fuel breaks—the cost savings resulting from reduced fire size compared to the expenses associated with implementing and maintaining linear fuel breaks. This thesis aims to address these gaps by quantifying the net benefits (benefits minus costs) of the Jarbidge linear fuel break complex within the Twin Falls BLM District in southern Idaho. The fuel breaks costs include the initial implementation and ongoing maintenance expenses, according to documentation provided by the Twin Falls BLM District. To determine the cost of wildfires in the northern Great Basin, data on wildfire suppression costs, post-fire rehabilitation expenditures, and grazing-related forage losses were collected for fires within the Twin Falls BLM District. These data were utilized to estimate cost functions for wildfires and to project wildfire costs based on the extent of acres burned and the associated cost per acre. Furthermore, to assess the impacts of wildfires on livestock producers and the regional economy, this thesis estimates the economic repercussions of allotment closures and the need for forage replacement to livestock producers. Then, regional economic data is leveraged to translate these impacts into projections at the county level. Finally, data collected in this thesis are utilized to estimate the net benefits derived from vegetative linear fuel breaks during the 2019 Pothole fire by comparing the actual costs of the fire with the estimated costs of a simulated 2019 Pothole fire in the absence of vegetative linear fuel breaks.