Transportation and Urban Wildfire Evacuation – Lessons from the 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires

Project Description

Communities in wildland urban interface areas face elevated risk of wildfire exposure. The existing fire evacuation literature has examined whether, when, and how to evacuate as well as behavioral variability in travel across demographic groups. These studies often rely on data from convenience samples that are not representative of all evacuees, and few studies collected qualitative data related to evacuation travel. Further, there is a gap in understanding evacuation travel from large urban wildfires like the Los Angeles January 2025 wildfires. This project seeks to address these issues.

The research team analyzes data from a random sample survey of evacuees from the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires and collects and analyzes qualitative interview data to understand evacuees’ 1) evacuation decision-making, 2) evacuation travel, 3) evacuation destination, and 4) evacuation experience. The analysis examines how transportation-related and other factors may affect wildfire responses and evacuation outcomes. The findings deepen our knowledge about evacuation travel during large urban wildfires and provide insights to better model household evacuation travel and overall disaster response, and improve disaster response planning.