Research
Job Market Paper
Rising Wildfire Risk and Private Forest Management Adaptation: Evidence from the Western United States
with Christopher Mihiar and David J. Lewis
Abstract. Wildfire risk has intensified across the western United States, with wildfires generating hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damages each year. Economic theory shows that changing wildfire risk should induce landowners to reduce risk exposure through forest management, though there is little empirical evidence of such landowner adaptation. This study provides the first large-scale empirical evidence on how increasing wildfire risk affects plot-level forest management decisions on non-federal land. Using confidential plot-level data from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis database linked with wildfire perimeters, we examine how nearby wildfires influence decisions regarding planting density and the choice among harvest types on private and state timberland in Oregon, California, and Washington. Controlling for plot and climate factors, we find that increased wildfire exposure leads landowners to lower planting densities and to shift harvest composition toward partial cutting and away from clearcutting, revealing adaptive responses to changing fire risk. A simulation exercise shows how the changing fire regime since 2001 has shifted harvest composition from clearcutting toward partial cutting across non-federal western forests.
Working paper — not peer reviewed; please do not cite. This version: June 22, 2026 (revisions in progress).
Selected Works in Progress
Do Public Fuels Treatments Crowd Out or Complement Private Forest Fuel Treatments?
with Christopher Mihiar and Alice Favero
Forest Yields Under Climate Change: Do Machine-Learning and Conventional Models Diverge?
with David J. Lewis