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It’s not an unthinkable notion. There have been a handful of attempts at systematically moving populations away from regions severely affected by climate change. This kind of “managed retreat” has typically been applied to risks from rising sea levels, with recent programs in the US involving relocating tribal populations in Alaska and Washington.
But people affected by wildfires are only just starting to see efforts from governments to help them to move away from high-risk areas, including in LA county. A California program launched last year that offered up to $350,000 in loans to those affected by fires in 2018 and 2020 to shift to safer places fully allocated its funds within weeks.
Researchers warn that wildfires pose very different risks from more predictable events like sea-level rise and riverbank flooding. “Managed retreat is not necessarily an appropriate response to fire risk, nor is it the only alternative to wildfire-induced displacement,” Kathryn McConnell of Brown University and Liz Koslov of the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in a study published last March.
Miriam Greenberg, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says a lot more research is needed before designing managed-retreat programs for wildfire-prone areas. But in some cases it’s much better for
