Identifying a network of wildfire evacuation host communities

Wildfire occurrence and intensity are increasing in many parts of the world including Western Canada. It is important to develop planning and preparedness strategies towards reducing the decision burdens of emergency management authorities in providing timely instructions during short-notice wildfire evacuations. One major decision that must be made in an emergency evacuation is where to send evacuees. We present a multi-objective facility location model to identify a network of potential wildfire host communities across the province of Alberta, Canada, in which many communities are located in wildfire prone areas. The results show that two communities are identified as host communities in all optimal solutions. We further observe that more than 90% of the wildfire-prone population (excluding one region) is "covered" by at least one of 13 host communities. Identifying host communities prior to wildfire season is also important for establishing further decisions around routing and relief distribution.