Assessing the Impact of Hazardous Fuels Treatments on Parcel Characteristics and Environmental Justice

Author

Patrick R. BensonFollow

Year of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Science (MS)

Degree Name

Geography

Department or School/College

Society and Conservation

Committee Chair

Anna Klene

Committee Co-chair

Fernando Sanchez-Trigueros

Commitee Members

Jessica Mitchell, Kyle Bocinsky

Keywords

hazardous fuels treatments, environmental justice, spatial analysis, distance decay, parcel data, spatial accessibility

Subject Categories

Geographic Information Sciences | Human Geography | Nature and Society Relations | Physical and Environmental Geography | Spatial Science

Abstract

The escalating wildfire crisis in the western U.S. necessitates equitable adaptation efforts, with the U.S. Forest Service's Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) relying heavily on Hazardous Fuels Reduction (HFR) treatments to protect high-risk landscapes (Johnson et al., 2023; Finney et al., 2011). While the biophysical effectiveness of HFR in reducing fire severity is proven, the distributional equity of these federal investments remains ambiguous. When federal agencies allocate public resources for protection, Environmental Justice mandates require that all communities receive fair treatment in the distribution of benefits, not just those with political influence or economic advantage (Exec. Order No. 12898, 1994; Exec. Order No. 14096, 2023; Bullard & Johnson, 2000). Assessing whether HFR investments achieve distributional equity remains challenging because standard assessments utilize coarse, aggregated social data that fails to capture disproportionate wildfire protection gaps in rural, underserved communities (Adams & Charnley, 2018). This study addresses this critical methodological and policy gap by asking: How are the benefits of HFR activities spatially distributed in the Kootenai Wildfire Crisis Strategy Priority Landscape? A novel parcel-level approach synthesizes advanced fire behavior modeling with detailed property attributes (market value, land use, and structural characteristics) to comprehensively quantify and map treatment benefits and their spatial variability (Scott et al., 2013). An exponential distance decay function operationalizes how these benefits attenuate with distance from treatment sites (Getis, 2009; Chen, 2015), while Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation detect benefit concentration zones (Anselin, 1995). By moving beyond coarse Census aggregations to analyze 21,604 individual properties, this research provides essential, place-based insights for integrating distributional equity considerations into wildfire planning. Results reveal that treatment benefits concentrate spatially near treatment sites (Moran's I = 0.419) but distribute equitably across property-based socioeconomic characteristics (η² = 0.002), with low-value and high-value parcels receiving statistically equivalent protection. Most importantly, this work creates a visible foundation for evaluating whether public wildfire risk reduction investments fulfill their promise of serving all communities equitably.

Recommended Citation

Benson, Patrick R., "Assessing the Impact of Hazardous Fuels Treatments on Parcel Characteristics and Environmental Justice" (2025). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12600.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12600