Lessons learned from community-scale use of temporary refuge areas during the Camp Fire.

BACKGROUND

Wildfires can quickly spread or ignite within wildland-urban interface areas, leading to life-threatening scenarios for people who cannot evacuate in time or who become trapped during evacuations. One such example of a dire scenario is the Camp Fire, which occurred in Butte County, California, in 2018.

AIMS: To provide insight into lessons learned from the evacuation during the Camp Fire and introduce a contingency, called temporary fire refuge areas, that communities can incorporate into their evacuation planning and response.

METHODS

An in-depth case study of the Camp Fire was conducted to reconstruct and understand the conditions and sequence of events of the evacuations during the incident.

KEY

RESULTS

The fire spread into communities within an hour after ignition, burning homes, blocking egress routes, and entrapping hundreds of evacuees. The ad hoc implementation of 31 temporary refuge areas saved the lives of at least 261 civilians and reduced the risk to at least 961 more.

CONCLUSIONS

Ad hoc temporary refuge areas facilitated a fortunate outcome with no known accompanying casualties. An intentional, pre-planned identification of suitable areas would enable emergency managers to reduce risk in their communities.

IMPLICATIONS: Communities should expressly consider no-notice and dire scenarios in their evacuation plans and community outreach programs, including temporary fire refuge areas in their fire response plans.