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Ohi, Sabrena Jahan; Kim, Amy M.

Wildfire occurrence and intensity are increasing in many parts of the world, including Western Canada. A large wildfire can prompt short- or no-notice community evacuations that can lead to evacuees being displaced for weeks if not months. It is important to reduce the decision burdens of emergency management authorities in providing timely instructions in these emergencies. One decision to support is where to send evacuees. In this study, we develop a multi-objective facility location model to identify a network of potential wildfire host communities across the province of Alberta, Canada, as part of pre-wildfire season strategic planning and preparation efforts. Our model generates a 1,200 solution Pareto front. Slave Lake and High Level are identified as host communities in each of the Pareto solutions, indicating that they are both high priorities for resource allocation in preparation for wildfire season. In explorations of these results, we observe that with 13 host communities, more than 90% of the wildfire-prone population (excluding one city) is "covered" by a pre-identified host community. Our work contributes to the literature on strategic wildfire emergency planning, helmed by state and provincial governments with jurisdiction over many communities across their large geographies. Having potential host communities pre-identified will reduce decision burdens during an emergency, and further decisions around routing and relief distribution can be built on this information. Submitted to Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice in July 2022

Article; Preprint

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0432702

Applied Science, Faculty of; Non UBC; Civil Engineering, Department of

Faculty; Graduate

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