Even before the LA caught fire, the California residents ran towards the ‘climate shelters’

Christina Welch still remembers what the sky looked that day, when her house Santa Rosa, there was a fire in the forest within 2 miles (3.2 km) from California.

This was the 2017 tubs fire, which was the most destructive in the history of California at that time. The neighbor of Ms. Welch woke her in the morning, and asked her to take her luggage and get out. When Ms. Welch opened the door, the ashes were falling from the sky and smoke was filled in the air.

Then, in 2019, the kicked wildfire forced his parents to vacate the house for five days.

This was the last push for Ms. Welch. After the advice of a friend, she packed her belongings and went through the country to her new hometown Duluth, Minnesota.

The 42 -year -old man said, “This was the culmination of all this.” “It has happened many times that I was going through the concern every time whether the fire was going to be lost if I am going to lose a house.”

Ms. Welch is one of the many people who have left California due to climate disasters in recent years, even before 25 people died this month in the most devastating forest fire in the history of Los Angeles.

Just this week, a new, rapidly growing wildfire erupted at Los Angeles County in the north-west of the city, forcing thousands of people to vacate the area already struggling with destruction. Trump plans to visit southern California on Friday to see the devastation caused by the fire.

Climate experts say that so far, they have not seen a massive migration from the state due to climate change – and it is difficult to estimate the number of people migrating for this reason. However, according to the US census, the state’s population growth rate has continued to fall since 2000.

But scientists and demographic experts say that as climate change disasters are becoming more serious and unexpected, the number of people leaving the state may increase, which will give some unprotected cities to welcome new inhabitants.

“This wave of new people can be, ‘do you know what? California will not work for me because this is the third time in five years when I have to close my doors due to excessive soot and pollution.” Smoke, “Professor Derek Wan Berkel, Professor of Data Science, Michigan University, said.

“We have to start preparing for those circumstances, as they are going to be continuously and more extreme.”

Many climate -related factors may motivate the residents of California to leave the house in the next decade. According to Calfire, from 2020 to 2023, wildfire in California destroyed more than 15,000 structures. Earlier this year, at least 12,000 structures have been destroyed in the fire in the Los Angeles forest.

The state also faces other effects of climate change including floods. According to the State Attorney General’s office, the increase in sea level may cause five million residents of California to be flooded by 2100.

According to the California Department of Protection, the state also struggles with at least two earthquakes of 5.5 or more intensity every year.

As climate disasters are becoming more serious and constantly, home insurance rates in the state are also increasing. According to San Francisco Chronicle analysis, more than 100,000 California residents have lost their home insurance from 2019.

Data suggests that climate migration, so far, is a local incident, in which some people are inland migration within their home state or even looking for high land in their city to avoid floods. Are, Jeremy Porter, head of the First Street’s climate implications, said, “climate risk modeling.

However, he said, in recent years, a small number of people have started coming to cities outside California who advertise themselves as a potential “climate shelter”.

The term came from climate adaptation researcher Jesse Kenan, in 2019, a list of places that are expected to be influenced less than climate change.

The top of the list is Duluth, Minnesota, which is a former industrial city, where around 90,000 people live, a population that has increased gradually since the years stagnation.

An attraction of the city is its proximity to the Great Lex, a series of lakes which includes the world’s largest freshwater reserves. About 10% of the US and 30% of Canada are dependent on lakes for drinking water.

Shri Van Berkel said, “In a scenario where resources have become rare, it is a tremendous property.”

The Great Lex Water Supply attracted Jamie Bake Alexander and his family towards Duluth. Concerned with three consecutive disastrous forest fire in California, Ms. Alexander, her husband and two young children boarded a camper van and moved to Minnesota from across the country in 2020.

Ms. Alexander has found similarities between the small, progressive city and her old city San Francisco.

He said, “There are real depths and deep roots of relationships between people, things that I think are important for climate flexibility.”

Ms. Welch ignored her friends, who thought she was crazy to go to a city who is known for record breaking snowfall and icy conditions, where average of 106 days a year would have been temperatures below 106 days in a year. Is. He said, clean, beautiful city situated on the hill has become his own.

Ms. Welch said of Duluth, “There are many people here who love and want to protect it.”

Although some cities have accepted their designation as a climate haven, it remains a challenge for small local governments to find resources to plan new residents and climate flexibility, said Mr. Van Berkel.

Sri Van Burkel works with Duluth and other cities in the Great Lex region on the plans for climate change, including welcoming new inhabitants transferred due to climate change.

The city of Duluth refused to respond to the BBC’s request to comment on preparations for the possible reception of climate migrants.

Currently, Mr. Porter said, high level of migration is not being seen in the Great Lex region and other “climate shelter” cities. But if it changed, many people will not be ready, he said.

Mr. Porter said, “There will be a need for heavy investment in local communities … those communities to be able to handle that kind of population as some climate migration literature indicates.”

For example, in the city of Duluth, the availability of housing could be an issue, Ms. Alexander said. He said that although there is a place to build new houses in the city, there are not enough new development for the currently growing population. He said, as a result, since she came there, housing prices have risen.

And any new housing and other development also needs to be done keeping in mind climate change, Shri Van Berkel said.

He said, “We do not want to take wrong steps that can be very expensive for our infrastructure, when climate change is taking terrible form in front of us.”

In 2024, the Hurricane of Category 4 destroyed over 2,000 houses and businesses in Ashville, the climate zone of Calci Lahr in Northern Carolina.

After a series of destructive forest fire and landslides near Santa Barbara city in California, she went there in 2020, attracted by the city’s warm climate, restaurant and music landscape.

Prior to proceeding, Ms. Lahr conducted a large-scale research at the most climate-oriented places to live, with Ashville at the top due to her light temperature and inland location, which protected it from floods.

But last year, Hurricane Helen caused havoc in western northern Carolina, killing more than 100 people in the state and destroyed the new hometown of Ms. Lahhar. Many people had to live without electricity for about 20 days and without potable water for more than a month.

Ms. Lahr said, “It is not clearly the southern Applacia she is not the ‘Climate heaven’ for which it was made.”

In deloth, Ms. Alexander said that her family also came to know that she could not run away from climate change.

During his first summer, the city was affected by the same smoke and poor air quality that distanced him from California – this time from Canadian wildfire.

He said, “It was as if the universe had made a deep joke with me.” “As long as we (of climate change) pay attention to the root cause, we will always feel that we need to move forward.”

Since then she has gone to Wisconsin for personal reasons, but says she has no regrets about the first visit to Minnesota. Nor is Ms. Lahhar regret to go to Ashville.

Although Ms. Lahhar often misses the ancient forests of Yosemite National Park in California, where she used to work as a park ranger and spends her summer, she said that more climate disasters may come in future, it requires sacrifice it occurs.

He said, “I am fast thinking that climate shelter is a myth.” “Everyone has to assess the risk where they live and go from there.”