Inequities & Injustices in Large-Scale California Wildfire Evacuations & Post-Evacuations

Abstract

Large-scale wildfire events are becoming more common with global climate change and increased human habitation of the wildland urban interface, particularly in the Western United States. These events can require thousands of people to evacuate quickly, rendering many without shelter for days or months on end. Given the large body research on inequalities in natural disasters, we examine the potential equity and justice issues associated with such large-scale wildfire evacuations, using the 2018 Northern California Camp Fire as a mixed- methods case study. We employ diverse methods including survey analysis, spatial analysis, thematic analysis, and decision tree methods to examine equity and justice implications at different stages of the evacuation, from pre-evacuation through eight months post-evacuation. We find evidence of inequalities at all stages, particularly regarding evacuation patterns, evacuee short-term sheltering, housing procurement, and long-term displacement. These results provide novel insight into large-scale evacuations and their longer-term effects for vulnerable people, and the mixed methods approach provides new insight into evacuee experiences.

Keywords: wildfire, equity, justice, evacuation, mixed-methods, housing