Estimating Private Incentives for Wildfire Risk Mitigation: Determinants of Demands for Different Fire-Safe Actions

In this article we develop a general conceptual model of a property-owner’s decision to implement actions to protect his property against wildfire threat. Assuming a prospective-utility maximizing decision maker, we derive a system of demand functions for fire-safe actions that characterizes factors affecting individual decision making. We then empirically estimate the demands for various fire-safe actions functions using survey data of property owners facing a wildfire threat in Nevada. We find that the probability of individuals implementing some fire-safe action increases with value of the residence, previous experience with wildfire, the property being used as the primary residence, positive attitude towards wildfire management methods on public lands, and connectedness of community members. A lower probability of implementing fire-safe actions is found for those who value pristine nature and privacy that nature provides.Risk and Uncertainty,

Association between fire-safe cigarette legislation and residential fire deaths in the United States

Abstract: Background: Cigarettes and other tobacco-related smoking products have traditionally been a major ignition source for residential fire deaths. In the United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws requiring that cigarettes self-extinguish if they are not being smoked (so-called fire-safe cigarette laws). The purpose of this study was to quantify the association between state-level implementation of fire-safe cigarette legislation and the rate of residential fire death. Methods: Poisson regression was used to analyze state-years data. Main intervention: Implementation dates for fire-safe cigarette legislation in each state. Outcome: Residential fire mortality rate. Results: Implementation of fire-safe cigarette legislation was associated with a 19% reduction in overall residential fire mortality rates, adjusted for demographic differences between states (rate ratio = 0.81, 95% confidence interval: 0.79, 0.84). This is approximately similar to the estimated proportion of residential fire deaths in which smoking materials are an ignition source (23%). Legislation implementation was associated with a protective effect for every age, sex, race, and ethnicity strata that we examined. State-specific residential fire mortality death rates decreased (defined as a drop of at least 5%) in 32 states after fire-safe cigarette legislation was implemented. In 12 states there was either less than a 5% decrease or an increase, and seven states had insufficient deaths to evaluate state-level changes. Conclusions: Implementation of fire-safe cigarette is associated with reductions in residential fire mortality rates

Firewise

The Firewise Home Page was created for people who live or vacation in fire prone areas of North America. The information contained here will help users become firewise individuals, and acquaint them with the challenges of living around interface/intermix wildfire. These pages provide information that may lessen the risk of wildfire loss for individuals, families and communities. There is a list of offline wildfire protection information as well as links to off-site fire resources. There is access to classroom resources prepared by the National Park Service and public TV, as well as downloadable off-line modules, documents and Powerpoint presentations. Educational levels: General public, High school, Middle school

Space Station Freedom combustion research

Extended operations in microgravity, on board spacecraft like Space Station Freedom, provide both unusual opportunities and unusual challenges for combustion science. On the one hand, eliminating the intrusion of buoyancy provides a valuable new perspective for fundamental studies of combustion phenomena. On the other hand, however, the absence of buoyancy creates new hazards of fires and explosions that must be understood to assure safe manned space activities. These considerations - and the relevance of combustion science to problems of pollutants, energy utilization, waste incineration, power and propulsion systems, and fire and explosion hazards, among others - provide strong motivation for microgravity combustion research. The intrusion of buoyancy is a greater impediment to fundamental combustion studies than to most other areas of science. Combustion intrinsically heats gases with the resulting buoyant motion at normal gravity either preventing or vastly complicating measurements. Perversely, this limitation is most evident for fundamental laboratory experiments; few practical combustion phenomena are significantly affected by buoyancy. Thus, we have never observed the most fundamental combustion phenomena - laminar premixed and diffusion flames, heterogeneous flames of particles and surfaces, low-speed turbulent flames, etc. - without substantial buoyant disturbances. This precludes rational merging of theory, where buoyancy is of little interest, and experiments, that always are contaminated by buoyancy, which is the traditional path for developing most areas of science. The current microgravity combustion program seeks to rectify this deficiency using both ground-based and space-based facilities, with experiments involving space-based facilities including: laminar premixed flames, soot processes in laminar jet diffusion flames, structure of laminar and turbulent jet diffusion flames, solid surface combustion, one-dimensional smoldering, ignition and flame spread of liquids, drop combustion, and quenching of panicle-air flames. Unfortunately, the same features that make microgravity attractive for fundamental combustion experiments, introduce new fire and explosion hazards that have no counterpart on earth. For example, microgravity can cause broader flammability limits, novel regimes of flame spread, enhanced effects of flame radiation, slower fire detector response, and enhanced combustion upon injecting fire extinguishing agents, among others. On the other hand, spacecraft provide an opportunity to use 'fire-safe' atmospheres due to their controlled environment. Investigation of these problems is just beginning, with specific fire safety experiments supplementing the space based fundamental experiments listed earlier; thus, much remains to be done to develop an adequate technology base for fire and explosion safety considerations for spacecraft

The environmental and health impacts of tobacco agriculture, cigarette manufacture and consumption.

The health consequences of tobacco use are well known, but less recognized are the significant environmental impacts of tobacco production and use. The environmental impacts of tobacco include tobacco growing and curing; product manufacturing and distribution; product consumption; and post-consumption waste. The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control addresses environmental concerns in Articles 17 and 18, which primarily apply to tobacco agriculture. Article 5.3 calls for protection from policy interference by the tobacco industry regarding the environmental harms of tobacco production and use. We detail the environmental impacts of the tobacco life-cycle and suggest policy responses