Climate change, increasing forest fire incidence, and the value of visibility: evidence from British Columbia, Canada

Climate change may increase the occurrence and severity of forest fires, leading to worsening wildfire seasons. More frequent burn events would have various effects due to increased haze and smoke, including a greater incidence of impacts on human health and reduced or impaired visibility. In areas such as the Lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia, which prides itself on panoramic mountain and city views, individuals may be willing to pay to address deteriorating visibility conditions arising from wildfires or other sources. However, studies consistently show that any attempt to ask individuals how much they are willing to pay to improve local visibility will be confounded with the benefits of improving local health conditions. We used a discrete choice experiment to estimate the value of potential improvements in local visibility in the Lower Fraser Valley, but we included the consideration of health effects and found that these two attributes were indeed linked. As human preferences are rarely homogeneous, we also considered heterogeneity in respondents’ preferences for increases in the number of improved-visibility days versus healthy days. Finally, we applied our results to estimate the value of damages from visibility disruptions related to wildfire smoke from 2002 to 2018 in the Lower Fraser Valley.