As wildfire activity has accelerated in recent years, evacuations due to wildfire risk have increased in frequency. However, because evacuations are carried out by a variety of local agencies, there is no centralized data source for evacuation information, limiting researchers ability to study evacuations at a broader scale. To address this gap we created a spatio-temporal database of wildfire evacuation orders for all California fires larger than 75 acres from 2000-2020. In total, evacuation orders corresponding to 983 fires were identified using systematic searches across inciweb, government agency outlets, media stories, and social media networks (approximately 40% of fires evaluated). For fires with detected evacuations, daily evacuation timelines were constructed. The compiled information was then used to map spatial extents of each evacuation and their evolution over time. The resulting database includes shapefiles of polygons corresponding to evacuation order boundaries with associated data indicating the fire that caused the evacuation, the evacuation start and end date, the evacuation type (warning, voluntary, or mandatory), the original evacuation order text, and links to the source information. This database offers the most comprehensive statewide record of wildfire evacuation order spatial extents in California. The data can facilitate research on historical evacuation responses and in turn inform future evacuation planning and decision making.

Download database (.shp) [***We are making the preliminary unofficial data for 2000-2020 available but note this version is still missing all of 2013 and 2015 as well as a few large Complex Fires from 2020. Quality Assurance checks ongoing and data subject to revision. Public release of finalized database v1 expected in early 2025***]
Download data documentation (.txt)
Download paper detailing data collection methods (.pdf) [full paper in prep for submission]


Suggested Citation:
Sam Heft-Neal, Lela Hanson, Atsada Israpanich, Talia Buckhouse. 2025. "Constructing a database of wildfire evacuations in California 2000-2020". https://stanford.edu/~samhn/evacuation-data/