KINGSTON, R.I. – Feb. 5, 2025 – The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection last weekend announced that the fires in Palisades and Eaton, which burned for more than three weeks, had been fully contained.

Driven by drought conditions and hurricane-force winds, the fires burned across about 60 square miles, destroying more than 16,000 homes and buildings, forcing the evacuation of over 200,000 residents, and causing $250 billion in damage.

While the fires are contained, the job of relief workers continues around the clock to help those affected. Hundreds of Red Cross workers have been providing support, including emergency shelters, financial assistance, and food and relief items. According to Red Cross statistics, about 450 people have stayed in emergency shelters, and more than 100,000 meals and snacks and over 100,000 relief items have been provided.

URI supply chain management professor Koray Özpolat, who researches humanitarian logistics and disaster relief, has followed the disaster in California and provides his expertise to evaluate the situation.

What sparked your interest in studying humanitarian logistics and disaster relief? Can you explain your research on the topic?

My first exposure to humanitarian logistics and disaster relief was during my employment for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Jordan as a programmer/analyst in 2003. My role exposed me to humanitarian supply chains where I observed the impact of humanitarian work on the lives of millions of refugees, and I found a deeper meaning in this new domain. After a few years, I decided to change my career and pursue a Ph.D. in supply chain management.

Humanitarian logistics is one of my research interests. Here at URI, we have studied the efficiency of U.S. food aid programs in comparison to the U.N. and European Union’s sourcing model and made recommendations to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in collaboration with my colleague professor Doug Hales. I also worked with engineering professor Resit Sendag to develop a decision aid tool, called the Greatest Good Donations Calculator, for the USAID to help Americans make smart donation decisions to international disasters.

For disaster relief planners, is there a set gameplan or does it depend on the disaster? 

While every disaster has a unique context, emergency management has four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Mitigation is about preventing disasters from happening or taking steps to reduce their impact. For example, clearing brush and vegetation around buildings reduces the spread of wildfires. Preparedness is about getting ready for the risk that cannot be mitigated. Fire drills and emergency alert systems are two examples. Response phase occurs in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. Putting out fires, search and rescue, offering shelter and food take place during this phase. Emergency management ends with recovery as life returns to normal, which could take months to years.

What are your thoughts about what you’ve seen of the response by local, state and federal operations to the California fires?

As far as I could follow in the media, the first responders have heroically fought the fires, often risking their lives and health. State and local leaders are facing questions about how they handled the first three phases of the emergency management cycle. For example, preventing residential construction in the wildland – urban interface of Los Angeles County, where grasslands or forests meet human development, could have mitigated the fires from spreading to residential areas so easily. The county’s evacuation alert system broke down during the fires and residents could not get urgent information about dangers nearby, which hurt response efforts. To be fair to local leaders, this fire was a challenging disaster, where ecological, social, infrastructure and climate factors contributed over a long period.

Red Cross, in collaboration with local officials, government agencies and other nonprofits, offered meals and overnight stays in their shelters where health care volunteers treated minor injuries, filled pharmaceutical and eyeglass prescriptions, and offered emotional support to those who were displaced.

I am, however, most impressed by the resilience of the Southern California communities and businesses that came together in solidarity and compassion. Angelenos are hosting thousands of evacuees free of charge through Airbnb. Uber offered two free rides per person to shelter sites. World Central Kitchen’s chefs, some of them Michelin starred, cooked for firefighters, and boutiques gave away clothes to displaced residents. While some politicians have used disaster aid approval for their own agendas, it’s nice to see the community come together. It is dangerous for outsiders to break the public’s trust in their local leaders in this critical moment when it could impede effective disaster response.

What have we have learned from this disaster?

With an estimated economic loss of about $250 billion, the California fires have been one of the costliest natural disasters in our history. The disaster relief response will be documented and critically studied in the next few years. However, based on available information, a few key take-aways jump out:

First, we need to invest in building infrastructure resilience. Our powerlines and grid are from the last century, which regularly fail and cause fires. Fire-resistant materials in construction must be enforced and residential areas must be separated from forest and grasslands by a larger margin in fire-prone areas.

Second, rather than supporting a rebuild of damaged properties in highly disaster-prone areas, the government should instead financially incentivize residents to relocate to safer regions. This is also true for the Southeast of the United States, which faces regular hurricanes and floods.

Finally, we need to consider climate change more seriously in future emergency management plans. Extended droughts, hotter seasons and high winds in California exacerbated these wildfires. We need to prepare for more frequent and higher magnitude disasters in the future.