Exploring the effects of wildfire events on movement patterns

Abstract

Natural and man-made disasters have a significant impact on movement patterns, yet existing studies often focus on aggregate-level trends, overlooking the heterogeneity of mobility responses within and across communities. A critical gap remains in understanding the nuanced impacts of wildfires on localized, fine-scale human mobility patterns, particularly how factors such as proximity to the fire, socio-demographic characteristics, and infrastructure shape movement responses. In this paper, we address this gap by analyzing human movement patterns during the wildfire seasons from 2018 to 2020 in California Spatial analytics are used to examine movement flows around twelve wildfire events and map the evolution of their spatio-temporal patterns in response to these disruptive events. To quantify and assess the magnitude of changes in movement patterns between fire and non-fire years, we employ a structural similarity metric. In doing so, we identify the points of influence corresponding to the onset of the fire and the subsequent recovery period. Finally, we characterize variations between fire events and identify the wildfires that had the most significant impact on movement patterns. The findings demonstrate the complexity of movement responses to the wildfires, highlighting the intricate interactions between visitation patterns and the built environment.