On January 16th, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Ashley Bosa led a wildfire tabletop exercise with Ashland Emergency Operations Center personnel in Oregon. This exercise, part of HCRI’s NSF project Household response to wildfire – integrating behavioral science and evacuation modeling to improve community wildfire resilience., aimed to identify critical decision points and messaging using a realistic FlamMap-based fire simulation. The scenario was co-developed by Ashland Emergency Manager Kelly Burns, Forestry Officer Chris Chambers, and HCRI researchers, including Oregon State University’s Chenqiang Liu and Haizhong Wang.
Around 30 participants, including fire department officials, law enforcement, transportation, communications officers, and healthcare representatives, engaged in the exercise. Their insights will inform a scenario-based community survey assessing residents’ intended evacuation actions during a wildfire. By integrating behavioral science and evacuation modeling, this research seeks to enhance community wildfire resilience and improve emergency response strategies.
Kelly Burns, City of Ashland Emergency Manager, preps for tabletop exercise in which approximately 30 emergency operations center participants attended.
“Know Your Zone”: Ashland has created ten evacuation zones used to alert residents, tourists, and commuters through their Citizen Alert system. Evacuation messaging gives residents instructions for zones on when and where to evacuate during wildfires and other emergencies.