UW Research: Public Favors More Wildfire Prevention

As wildfires continue to grow in frequency and severity in Wyoming and the West, researchers at the University of Wyoming are exploring levels of public support for federal policy changes to place more emphasis on fire prevention. Sheridan Media’s Ron Richter has more.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers with the University of Wyoming conducted two national surveys regarding federal wildfire policy. The researchers say they’ve found a misalignment between federal policy and public priorities. According to the results of the surveys, respondents said they favored more work on fire prevention, including fuel management and forest thinning,  instead of focusing primarily on fire suppression. In 2023, the U.S. Forest Service spent $2.7 billion on fire suppression compared to $207 million on fire prevention efforts.

The researchers say the federal government’s focus on fire suppression, rather than prevention, can be explained by what they describe as “the intangibility of public policy”: Agencies may presume people favor fire suppression because the impact of firefighting is more visible than that of prevention efforts, which may stop or simply reduce the severity of fires. In 2024, the Elk Fire on the Bighorn National Forest burned over 98,000 acres before it reached 100 percent containment on November 14. By the end of November 2024, suppression costs of the Elk Fire exceeded $50 million.