Some people move after wildfires due to the direct impacts on their homes or businesses. But new research shows that only the most destructive wildfires lead people to relocate en masse.1
It seems every year there is more news about wildfires racing through American neighborhoods, and U.S. records show a longer and more intense fire season. While it seems clear that more people are impacted by wildfires than ever before, the long-term impacts on communities are not well understood.
To understand the relationship between wildfires and migration, Kathryn McConnell of Brown University and colleagues examined movement after the most destructive wildfires in the contiguous United States between 1999 and 2020. They combined data on wildfire-related structure loss (from the U.S. National Incident Command System/Incident Status Summary Forms) with data on residents with credit history (from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel) whose addresses changed census tract between two quarters.
People May Move After a Wildfire for a Variety of Reasons
Environmental events can influence migration through direct damage to the built environment—e.g., by burning down homes—or through indirect mechanisms. Which actually push people to move?
If direct impacts matter, most moves would occur in the immediate aftermath of the fire and from land directly impacted. As the number of destroyed structures increases, the number of people moving out of the area would grow at an increasing rate. This is similar to what has been documented in the aftermath of extreme temperature and rainfall events.
Indirect impacts may relate to residential preferences changing because of the fire. In this case, migration would happen in areas that experienced less destruction and continue for several years. In-migration to fire-affected places will decline as potential movers seek to avoid the fire-affected areas.
A Small Number of Wildfires Are Responsible for Most Destruction
Historically, most wildfires have not harmed manmade structures, but such destruction has risen dramatically in recent years. Records show more acres are burning, more large fires are occurring, and fire season is getting longer, due to climate change. At the same time, more people are living in high fire-risk regions, with considerable population and housing growth in close proximity to wildlands.
The researchers found that a small number of wildfires were responsible for most of the destruction to the built environment. Between 1999 and 2020, only 15.6% of all documented wildfires destroyed one or more structures, and just 10 fires caused 39.5% of all wildfire-related structure loss. The largest wildfire during that period, the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, took down 18,804 structures, accounting for 17.2% of all wildfire-related structure loss during the study period.
The 2025 fire season has already provided an example of the increasing destruction caused by wildfires. According to CAL FIRE, the Eaton and Palisades fires, which took place concurrently and within close proximity after this study was published, burned 37,728 total acres and destroyed 16,246 structures—almost as many as the Camp Fire.
Only the Most Extreme Wildfires Influence Migration Patterns
In the rare cases where wildfires pushed people to move, it was because of direct impacts to the built environment.
During the three months after the 519 most destructive wildfires—those that destroyed between 14 and 18,804 structures—more people moved out of burned areas than moved out of nearby non-burned areas. In the year after the fire, burned tracts had 4 to 5 more movers per thousand residents, on average, than unburned tracts.
Migration following the Camp Fire alone was larger in magnitude and longer in duration than any other subgroup of destructive wildfires. The migratory effect of the Camp Fire during the first year after the event was between 14 and 20 times as large as that of the “more destructive” group. Unlike the other sub-groups, the effect on migration was still significant in the second year after the Camp Fire.
Wildfires Have Little Impact on In-Migration
Across all the groups of destructive fires, the study found little reduction in the number of people moving into fire affected places, suggesting the movement out was related to direct impacts.
The study also found little increase in in-migration. Studies after hurricanes have identified an increase in in-migration, referred to as “recovery migration” in which returning and new residents arrive into or within disaster-affected areas after initial displacement events or individuals temporarily relocate to impacted areas for disaster clean-up employment. Only following the Camp Fire did this study find an increase in in-migration, which took place in the first quarter, the first year, and the second year after the fire. The researchers suggest that this increase could be due to post-wildfire gentrification or the continued push of residents into more affordable but fire-prone areas.
Why Do People Stay Put?
Unlike slow-onset environmental changes such as drought or precipitation anomalies, which are more likely to lead to increases in migration, the authors note that people are often immobilized by wildfires because of the destruction of household wealth, limiting funds needed to move. Some people may be involuntarily trapped in their communities. Others may have the capacity to move but desire to stay in place due to social and economic networks, local amenities, or the ability to mitigate exposure to hazards. In California, for example, many people may live in rural areas more prone to fire disasters due to the high costs of urban areas. Conversely, environmental amenities may pull some residents to remain in these rural areas despite the wildfire risk.
Regardless, the 2025 Los Angeles fires showed how quickly people’s lives can be forever changed by destructive disasters. Understanding how and why people move after a fire can help planners prepare for the next event.
This article was produced under a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The work of researchers from the NICHD-funded Population Dynamics Research Centers at Brown University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison was highlighted.