Post-Fire Erosion Factors
Related pages: Sentinel-2 Live Fuel Moisture Content Burned Area Mapping Fire Spotting; Thermal
Factors to consider when assessing post-fire erosion include rain and wind intensity; the amount of erosion of both are in large part a function of hillslope angle. The plots below are produced from data in Hollinger (2005) and illustrate the impact of these factors. For the plots, a precipitation event is deemed to have a rain intensity of at least 0.16 in/hr while a wind event is deemed to have a wind speed of at least 32 mph; rain event data do not include wind events and wind event data do not include rain events. The erosion data are for the Williams Fire in the San Gabriel Mountains in September of 2002 (the extent of the fire is shown in the Landsat Burned Area Mapping page). The rain and wind data represent times during the winter after the fire and were collected from nearby stations; it was relatively more windy than rainy during the winter after the fire. The design of the erosion collections areas and a picture are shown after the plots.
Erosion plot design (Hollinger, 2005)
Erosion plot picture (Hollinger, 2005)
Reference
Hollinger, D. 2005. Post-fire erosion and the role of bedrock: San Dimas Experimental Forest. Thesis. California State University, Northridge.