Cyrillic Partners

Southern California burned for the third day, forcing the evacuation of 300,000 and burning 400 square miles, according to the New York Times. It’s too early for journalists to start ball parking the total cost of the disaster, but you can bet they will soon.

It’s an important question for policy makers. The science of cost-benefit-analysis occasionally wends its way into debate, often with mixed interpretations. Aggrieved parties will call out at the injustice of reducing a complex issue such as public health and safety to pure numbers.

Coming up with an approximation for the value of lost property, the loss of life, the time and overtime of first responders and the time cost and anxiety of having to relocate hundreds of thousands of Californians is a complex, but achievable task. The real tricky part is determining WHO bears the cost of these fires and if the payers, likely ALL Californians, should be responsible for paying for better fire protection in the future. It’s a variation of the math behind building levies to protect farmers who decide to live in a flood plain. Why should everyone subsidize protection that will only be enjoyed by those that live by the river, or in this case, the hills outside San Diego? This is the real sticky wicket when it comes to cost benefit analysis and public policy.

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