Incentives to shift the wildfire management paradigm around natural ignitions

View article.

Using a Delphi approach, whereby individual participants complete anonymous iterative surveys and provide feedback on group responses, wildfire management professionals in Arizona and New Mexico provided input on which incentives would have the greatest impact on use of “other than full suppression” OTFS strategies and how feasible implementation would be. Consistent public support from agency leadership, financial rewards for successful use of OTFS strategies, and allowing acres burned by OTFS wildfires to count toward regional treatment targets were among the most impactful in the eyes of participants. These results suggest that incentivizing OTFS management requires a combination of policy adjustment and agency alignment to better leverage wildfire for ecosystem restoration.