Analyzing the chances of evacuation in the 2018 Mati Fire

The 2018 Mati wildfire in Greece caused 104 fatalities, leading to national mourning and a change in Greek wildfire policy. Dry conditions, strong winds, and limited evacuation routes led to a late evacuation, with people trapped in the path of the wildfire. Evacuating from wildfires is crucial for saving lives, but timing and planning is key. Dire evacuations happen when there is no time to evacuate from a wildfire, but people attempt to do so, resulting in entrapment and loss of life. This presentation studies Mati using trigger boundaries,  to examine whether an evacuation with no casualties was possible. Trigger boundaries relate the required time to evacuate a community to the available time until a wildfire reaches the community. Analyzing past wildfires with trigger boundaries can help understand what went wrong and improve future evacuation strategies for at-risk communities.