The York Research Database

Research has not examined how the impacts of arrests manifest across space and time in environmental crimes. We evaluate whether arrests reduce or merely spatiotemporally displace intentional illegal outdoor firesetting. Using municipality-level daily wildfire count data from Galicia, Spain, from 1999 to 2014, we develop daily spatiotemporal ignition count models of agricultural, non-agricultural, and total intentional illegal wildfires as functions of spatiotemporally lagged arrests, the election cycle, seasonal and day indicators, meteorological factors, and socio-economic variables. We find evidence that arrests reduce future intentional illegal fires across space in subsequent time periods.