Spatial Disparities in Fire Shelter Accessibility: Capacity Challenges in the Palisades and Eaton Fires

2025-06-07

AI Summary

This study addresses the severe shelter shortage during the January 2025 Palisades and Eaton wildfires in Southern California—which displaced 180,000 people and destroyed 16,000 structures—by pioneering a dual-dimension assessment of shelter accessibility, integrating capacity constraints and spatial equity. Using GIS-based spatial modeling, demand heatmaps, and both capacity-driven and proximity-driven shelter siting simulations, we evaluate accessibility through equity metrics including the Gini coefficient and coverage disparity. Results reveal that 32% of high-demand areas suffer inadequate shelter coverage. An optimized siting strategy improves overall accessibility by 19% and reduces regional equity gaps by 41%. The study’s contribution lies in proposing a novel shelter allocation paradigm that jointly ensures supply–demand alignment and geographic justice, offering empirical evidence and methodological guidance for emergency planning in mountainous and socially isolated communities.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization

Abstract

The increasing frequency and severity of wildfire in California, exacerbated by prolonged drought and environmental changes, pose significant challenges to urban community resilience and equitable emergency response. The study investigates issues of accessibility to shelters during the Palisades and Eaton Fires which started in January 2025 in Southern California that led to over 180,000 displacements and the loss of 16,000 structures. Despite coordinated efforts of many organizations' emergency assistance, shelter shortages left many evacuees without safety or accessible refuge. This research aims to measure shelter accessibility during the fires' peak, evaluate whether existing shelter capacity met the demand, and identify spatial disparities in access. Results reveal severe shelter shortages and pronounced inequities in access to shelters, particularly in geographically isolated regions and mountainous areas. Our simulations of shelter placement strategies using a capacity-based algorithm and a proximity-based approach demonstrate potential improvements in both shelter accessibility and equitable access to shelters. The findings underscore the critical need for strategic shelter planning and infrastructure development to enhance disaster readiness and reduce vulnerability in regions that frequently experience wildfires.

Problem

• Investigates shelter accessibility during Palisades and Eaton Fires
• Evaluates spatial disparities in shelter access and capacity shortages
• Proposes improved shelter placement strategies for equitable access

Innovation

• Simulated shelter placement using capacity-based algorithm
• Evaluated proximity-based approach for equitable access
• Identified spatial disparities in shelter accessibility