The social cost of US wildfire carbon emissions

Abstract

Combustion during forest fires and decomposition for several decades afterward both release CO₂ into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change, but the large costs imposed on society by these emissions are typically excluded from accounts of wildfire damages. This paper quantifies the social cost of the entire wildfire emissions profile of combustion, post-combustion emissions and regrowth, by incorporating a representative fire emissions vector into the dynamic integrated climate and economy model. The analysis finds that the social costs of temperate fire emissions are approximately $7.8 million per 1000 ha burned (2019 dollars). Back of the envelope calculations incorporating fire severity, and temperate and boreal emissions intensities, yield an average annual cost of $4.6 billion across the entire United States.