Are wildfire risk mitigators more prepared to evacuate? Insights from communities in the Western United States

As the realized experiences of wildfires threatening communities increase, the importance of proactive evacuation preparation and wildfire risk mitigation on private property to reduce the loss of lives and property is shaping wildfire policy and programs. To date, research has focused on pre-wildfire evacuation preparation and risk mitigation independently. This paper examines the substitutability or complementarity of these proactive risk-reducing actions. If mitigation and evacuation preparedness are substitutes, wildfire education programs may take a life-over-property approach. However, if proactive risk-reducing efforts are complements, wildfire education programs can confidently encourage residents to prepare for evacuation while also mitigating wildfire risk on their properties. This complementarity may also demonstrate that poorly mitigated households are less prepared to evacuate, compounding their risks. Using household survey data from 25 wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities across five Western states, we explore how wildfire risk mitigation actions affect evacuation preparedness. We find that improving household wildfire mitigation is associated with an improvement in wildfire evacuation preparedness. This complementary relationship between wildfire mitigation and evacuation preparedness actions highlights the potential benefits of a wildfire education approach that encourages residents to simultaneously prepare for evacuation and reduce wildfire risk on their properties before they are threatened by a wildfire.