To evacuate means to leave a place quickly because of danger, or to remove people from a dangerous location. When a school has a fire drill, students evacuate the building in an orderly way, practicing what they'd do in a real emergency. During a hurricane, residents might evacuate their coastal town, packing up their belongings and moving inland where they'll be safer.

The word comes from the idea of emptying a space of people. When firefighters evacuate an apartment building because of smoke, they're making sure everyone gets out safely. Sometimes entire neighborhoods evacuate before a wildfire approaches, or an airport terminal evacuates because of a bomb threat.

An evacuation is the act or process of evacuating. After an earthquake, there might be an evacuation of damaged buildings while engineers check if they're safe. People who leave are called evacuees. During World War II, many British children became evacuees when they left dangerous cities for the safety of the countryside.

The word can also mean emptying something of air or fluid, like when a pump evacuates water from a flooded basement, though this technical meaning is less common than the emergency-related one.