The Relationship Between Wildfire and Welfare

We used the well-being evaluation method, a technique for measuring individual utility, to study how people in the wildland urban interface of Colorado (USA) felt about their lives before and after two wildfire scenarios. Variables such as age, family size, fire frequency, and house value were found to affect initial well-being levels. However, after a significant life event, such as a wildfire, many variables that initially affected well-being were no longer significant. We found that after wildfire, the frequency of wildfire occurrence became the most important influence on well-being.