Supporting forest fire evacuation planning

Every year, thousands of forest fires threaten the safety of populations across Canada, disrupting essential networks and degrading air quality. Evacuation remains the main mean of protection from this hazard. But when should an evacuation be ordered? An advanced tool could assist authorities in making this critical decision, which depends on many factors.

Making Emergency Relocation Safer

Strongly influenced by the time needed to leave the danger area safely, this project, carried out in partnership with Canadian Forest Service, a division of Natural Resources Canada, aims to develop a decision support tool to accurately estimate evacuation times of a community threatened by forest fire and to suggest optimized evacuation plans. 
 
The resulting solution incorporates key elements such as traffic congestion, road network capacity, and the direct impact of forest fires on the latter. Users can visualize evacuation flows and determine critical points, allowing for better planning and anticipation and safer emergency travel.

A Technology Validated by Field Testing

As there are currently no user-friendly, targeted tools available to estimate travel times and evacuation capacities and to determine preferred roads or safety zones to reach; this solution provides decision-makers with a concrete and accessible tool. Its uniqueness also hinges on its strong interdisciplinary approach combining operations research, emergency management, and fire science to tackle a complex issue in an integrated way, adapted to the reality on the ground. 
 
Tested in Chibougamau, Quebec, which underwent an evacuation in 2023, and at Kejimkujik National Park, Nova Scotia; this project encompasses the development of a Web application and leverages standard optimization algorithms. Several municipalities and local authorities—including Marston, Rimouski-Neigette, Québec City, and the Indigenous community of Pikogan—have expressed an interest in testing out and actively contributing to this project launched in 2021. 

A Concrete Response to Public Safety Matters

Research Team  

Alfredo Moreno, Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad del Norte (Colombia); Aura Jalal and Vittorio Nicoletta, postdoctoral researchers, Valérie Bélanger and Marie-Ève Rancourt, Associate Professors, Department of Logistics and Operations Management, HEC Montréal; Marilène Cherkesly, Professor, Department of Analytics, Operations, and Information Technologies, UQAM; Xianli Wang and Jonathan Boucher, research scientists, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada