Burning Inequities: Comparative Analysis of Socio-economic Drivers for Post-Wildfire Resource Allocation in the Southwestern US States

Wildfires are increasingly threatening the southwestern US states because of climatic extremes, heatwaves, dried vegetation, and anthropogenic interferences. While wildfire-prone regions in the US are more likely to be populated by higher-income groups, this fact overshadows the existence of thousands of low-income, underrepresented individuals, lacking resources to prepare for and recover from wildfires. However, state-level and local policies for wildfire management significantly differ across the states, driven by wildfire exposures, demographics, budgetary priorities, and political scenarios. Although there is a growing literature on wildfire management, there are limited studies analyzing state-level similarities and differences related to equitable wildfire resource allocation. To address this gap, this study aims to investigate the key socio-demographic and economic factors associated with post-wildfire resource allocation for the three southwestern US states (California, Arizona, Colorado), and compare/contrast the underlying inequities. Data on wildfire incidents and socio-demographic information is collected from multiple sources from 2015-2022, and interpretable machine learning models are implemented to evaluate the county-level social inequities in post-wildfire resource allocation across the states. Our preliminary results highlight that the disadvantaged Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) communities (higher proportions of low income, less education, Black and Hispanic populations) are disproportionately impacted by wildfires as opposed to their wealthier counterparts, which further worsened due to inadequate and inefficient post-wildfire resource allocations. The outcomes of this study will better inform strategic decisions and policymaking for equitable wildfire management.

Keywords: Wildfire management, Equitable resource allocation, Machine learning, Marginalized community.