Analysis of evacuation behavior in a wildfire event

Abstract

Disasters and extreme events, both natural and man-made, can have dramatic implications in terms of loss of human lives, well-being and economic costs. Understanding the demand for travel during disaster events, in particular when evacuations take place, is critical for the efficient management of the event. The usual activity and travel patterns may be completely broken and not at all relevant during an event, when completely different considerations take priority.A large-scale wildfire took place in Haifa on November 24, 2016. On that day, starting at around 10 a.m., a series of wildfires occurred in the city. As a result, about 40,000 inhabitants (15% of Haifa's population) were evacuated. Shortly after the fire events, a web survey was developed and administered in order to collect data on the activities that residents of the affected areas undertook on that day.This paper presents analysis of this data to evaluate the choices of individuals whether to evacuate or not, the main factors that affect these decisions and related choices. The results are compared with findings from previous studies of evacuation behavior in the literature