Assessing the Effectiveness of Phased Evacuation Strategies under Slow and Fast Fire Scenarios with a Real Case Study in Paradise, California

Forest fires are recurrent threats to many parts of the world and often require large-scale mass evacuations. The frequency and severe consequences of wildfires makes it necessary to develop evacuation plans for vulnerable communities. Phased evacuation strategies have been adopted and demonstrated to be effective in certain emergency situations. By dividing the population into zones and evacuating them through an optimized phased sequence, the network congestion levels can be reduced. Research is scarce regarding its effectiveness under diverse fire progression scenarios. In this study, a fire evacuation model based on cell transmission model is applied to assess the effectiveness of phased evacuation strategies under slow and fast fire scenarios. Using the town of Paradise, California, as a case study where a major wildfire occurred, results show the proposed model has the ability of incorporating fire threat levels into the optimization process and finding the optimal evacuation order time and routes for each zone.