# Collaborative Research: Household Response to Wildfire – Integrating Behavioral Science and Evacuation Modeling to Improve Community Wildfire Resilience

> **NSF 01002324DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT** · Clemson University (SC) · $250,000

## Abstract

The past four decades have seen a significant increase in wildfire frequency, magnitude, and resulting human and economic losses as driven by climate change and rapid population growth into the wildland-urban interface (WUI, where homes and infrastructure meet the wildland). Wildfire risk can be significantly reduced by three types of pre-event household hazard adjustments—mitigation, preparedness to stay, defend, and survive, and readiness to evacuate. However, the factors that influence the adoption of these hazard adjustments remain poorly understood. Existing wildfire evacuation models rarely consider fire spread dynamics; lack trilateral integration of people, fire hazard, and traffic components; and are based on limited social-behavioral data. To address these knowledge gaps, this project will integrate behavioral data with active learning and goal-setting techniques for increasing WUI residents’ adoption of pre-event hazard adjustments. In addition, social-behavioral data will be infused into transportation engineering models to create more accurate and actionable agent-based models (ABMs) for evacuation. To achieve these objectives, the researchers will collaborate with four WUI communities in three states to (1) identify factors influencing households’ pre-event hazard adjustment adoption and evacuation decision-making for wildfire hazard, and (2) integrate social-behavioral data into wildfire evacuation scenarios using ABMs to evaluate alternative evacuation strateg

## Key facts

- **NSF award ID:** 2539050
- **Awardee organization:** Clemson University (SC)
- **SAM.gov UEI:** H2BMNX7DSKU8
- **PI:** Haizhong Wang
- **Primary program:** 01002324DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
- **All programs:** CIVIL INFRASTRUCTURE, HAZARD AND DISASTER REDUCTION, HAZARD AND DISASTER RESPONSE, CAS-Critical Aspects of Sustainability, EXP PROG TO STIM COMP RES, CIVIL INFRASTRUCTURE
- **Estimated total:** $250,000
- **Funds obligated:** $249,761
- **Transaction type:** Standard Grant
- **Period:** 08/15/2025 → 07/31/2026

## Primary source

NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2539050

## Citation

> US National Science Foundation, Award 2539050, Collaborative Research: Household Response to Wildfire – Integrating Behavioral Science and Evacuation Modeling to Improve Community Wildfire Resilience. Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-08 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nsf/2539050. Licensed CC0.

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