Project by Triana Hernandez Hasselkus @trihernandez
Wildfire at the Urban Edge investigates how Los Angeles County’s housing affordability crisis is pushing communities into the wildland-urban interface (WUI), exposing socially vulnerable populations to mounting wildfire risk. Through spatial analysis, mapping, multi-criteria decision analysis, and evacuation network modeling, the project maps where hazard, vulnerability, aging housing stock, and development pressure converge across the county.
The research shows that WUI expansion is no longer driven by lifestyle choice alone, but increasingly by displacement from unaffordable urban centers. Drawing on the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires alongside demographic and infrastructural data, the project traces how climate risk intersects with racial, economic, and spatial inequality. Wildfire vulnerability, it argues, is as much a housing justice and planning challenge as an environmental one, demanding integrated solutions that address affordability, resilient infrastructure, equitable disaster preparedness, and sustainable regional growth.
