Friday Flash - Demand for prescribed fire on private lands in the Mid-Atlantic United States

JFSP Project ID: 20-1-01-19

Researchers: Dr. Melissa Kreye, Dr. Jesse Kreye & Arun Regmi (Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Pennsylvania State University)

There is an increasing interest by natural resource professionals to restore important fire-dependent ecosystems in order to enhance the provision of ecosystem services. Restoring fire across eastern US landscapes is complicated by a diverse mix of public and private land ownerships. In the Mid-Atlantic region, most prescribed burning occurs on public lands. However, three-fourths of forestlands in this region are privately owned which means the potential for private lands burning is significant. To help inform policies that support prescribed burning on private lands, the aforementioned researchers conducted a regional survey of private landowners regarding their knowledge and interest in prescribed burning.

The survey assessed landowner knowledge and perceived risk of burning, trust in fire practitioners, and willingness to pay for using prescribed fire as a management tool. They also examined regional variation in landowner responses using a spatial analysis technique called hot spotting. Overall, many respondents had limited experience with prescribed fire, but many also had low-risk perceptions about prescribed fire and positive attitudes towards prescribed fire implementors. Results showed that private landowners see burning as a tool that can help them obtain important ecological (e.g., forest health) benefits and support cultural values about forest stewardship. The hotspot analysis indicated that respondent’s opinions were spatially correlated. Respondents from the most northern (New York) and southern (Virginia) regions of the study area were statistically different from the rest of the study area. New York landowners were less knowledgeable about prescribed burning and had higher risk perception, whereas Virginia landowners had greater knowledge experience and lower risk perceptions. This outcome is reasonable as prescribed fire is commonly used in Virginia and uncommon in New York. Pennsylvania landowners were unique, however, because even though knowledge about prescribed fire was low, they had a much higher willingness to pay compared to Virginia which already uses prescribed fire. This suggests that landowners in Pennsylvania are highly motivated to use prescribed fire even though there isn’t an established burn economy. Education, technical support, financial assistance and access to professionals will be important for helping private landowners use prescribed fire to achieve important management objectives. 

Photo caption: Prescribed burning in oak woodlands in Pennsylvania. Photo by Jonathon Chester.