Americans Are Flocking to Wildfire
Homes in Danger
We hope this study will increase people’s awareness of wildfire risk,” said Clark. “Most people think of wildfire as just a problem in the West, but wildfire now impacts large swaths of the country—the Northwest down to the Southwest, but also parts of the Midwest and the Southeast like Appalachia and Florida.”
Despite climate change’s underlying role in extreme weather events, the team was surprised by how little the obvious climate impacts of wildfire and heat seemed to impact migration. “If you look where people are moving, these are some of the country’s warmest places—which are only expected to get hotter,” said Clark, a researcher at UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment and Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.
“When you’re looking for a place to live on Zillow or through real-estate agents, many don’t highlight that you’re looking at a fire-prone region, or a place where summer heat is expected to become extreme,” said Clark, noting the website Redfin recently added risk scores to listings. “You have to do your research.”
Migration Factors
Beyond the aversion to hurricanes and heatwaves, the study identified several other clear preferences—a mix of environmental, social, and economic factors—that also contributed to U.S. migration decisions over the last decade.
The team’s analysis revealed a set of common qualities shared among the top migration destinations: warmer winters, proximity to water, moderate tree cover, moderate population density, better human development index (HDI) scores—plus wildfire risks. In contrast, for the counties people left, common traits included low employment, higher income inequality, and more summer humidity, heatwaves, and hurricanes.
Researchers note that Florida remained a top migration destination, despite a history of hurricanes—and increasing wildfire. While nationally, people were less attracted to counties hit by hurricanes, many people—particularly retirees—still moved to Florida, attracted by the warm climate, beaches, and other qualities shared by top migration destinations. Although hurricanes likely factor into people’s choices, the study suggests that, overall, the benefits of Florida’s desirable amenities still outweigh the perceived risks of life there, researchers say.
“The decision to move is a complicated and personal decision that involves weighing dozens of factors,” said Clark. “Weighing all these factors, we see a general aversion to hurricane risk, but ultimately—as we see in Florida—it’s one factor in a person’s list of pros and cons, which can be outweighed by other preferences.”
For the study, researchers combined census data with data on natural disasters, weather, temperature, land cover, and demographic and socioeconomic factors. While the study includes data from the first year of the COVID pandemic, the researchers plan to delve deeper into the impacts of remote work, house prices, and the cost of living.
The study, “Flocking to Fire: How Climate and Natural Hazards Shape Human Migration Across the United States” is the largest investigation yet of how natural disasters and climate change impacted U.S. migration over the last decade.
As global climate change progresses, the U.S. is expected to experience warmer temperatures, as well as more frequent and severe extreme weather events, including heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and floods. Each year, these events cost dozens of lives and do billions of dollars worth of damage.
