Water Utility Financing for Fire Protection Improvements in North Carolina

With the current increasing wildfire risk, how do water and utility systems finance improvements that support fire protection infrastructure? Water system improvements to infrastructure and capacity can be a costly endeavor for water utilities to fund. This is a challenge in North Carolina, which has substantial risk due to development in the wildlife urban interface and extensive acres of forestry. Current research on financing fire protection is more prevalent in the Western Continental US due to the wildfire and water resource challenges it faces. This study aims to fill the absence of research into how North Carolina plans for and finances reserve capacity to respond to wildfire events. A dataset was created detailing the presence or absence of fire rate charges by using consumer rate charge sheets for water utilities throughout North Carolina to identify all fire charges levied on customers. This dataset informs a regression to use the presence of a fire charger along with utility size, fire risk, and other important variables to identify what may increase the likelihood of charging for fire capacity. This work explores a quantitative analysis of where consumer rate charges for fire protection are levied, along with interviews to supplement findings. In the interviews, water professionals help to provide context into what cannot be identified quantitatively to present a complete picture of the needs and challenges utilities face when considering system improvements for fire protection.