Post-wildfire Housing Recovery Simulation via an Agent-based Model

As climate change increases the frequency and severity of disasters, proactive planning for post-disaster housing recovery is essential to mitigate long-term social and economic disruption. Computational models can support this planning by simulating potential recovery trajectories, yet many existing approaches are limited by overwhelming data requirements or narrow applicability to past events. Here, we introduce RAAbIT (Recovery Assessment using Agent-based Tools), a novel agent-based model designed to simulate housing recovery using data available within weeks of a disaster. RAAbIT models individual households, insurers, and contractors as agents governed by empirical behavior rules, and incorporates modifiable system-level constraints, such as contractor availability, to reflect context-specific recovery dynamics. We demonstrate the model’s utility by hindcasting two California wildfires—the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa and the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise—and capturing their divergent recovery trajectories. Despite similar hazards, the two communities experienced significantly different reconstruction outcomes, with Santa Rosa rebuilding 57% of destroyed homes and Paradise only 9% within five years. RAAbIT can reproduce temporal and spatial patterns of recovery observed in building permit and construction data. By balancing generalizability with data realism, RAAbIT provides a flexible and transferable tool for post-disaster recovery planning, supporting more effective decision-making under uncertainty and enhancing community resilience in the face of escalating climate risks.