Rare and highly destructive wildfires drive human migration in the U.S.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: McConnell K
PROVIDER: S-EPMC11300458 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Rare and highly destructive wildfires drive human migration in the U.S.
McConnell Kathryn K Fussell Elizabeth E DeWaard Jack J Whitaker Stephan S Curtis Katherine J KJ St Denis Lise L Balch Jennifer J Price Kobie K
Nature communications 20240805 1
The scale of wildfire impacts to the built environment is growing and will likely continue under rising average global temperatures. We investigate whether and at what destruction threshold wildfires have influenced human mobility patterns by examining the migration effects of the most destructive wildfires in the contiguous U.S. between 1999 and 2020. We find that only the most extreme wildfires (258+ structures destroyed) influenced migration patterns. In contrast, the majority of wildfires ex ...[more]
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