A Pacific Palisades house that was still standing after the Palisades Fire was split in two by a landslide in the neighborhood overlooking the Los Angeles County coast.
Ultrahot fires these days tends to loosen up the top foot or two of soil both through root burnout and pure thermal expansion. I know in the burn areas near my house, if you go out a month after the fire your boots will practically disappear in dry topsoil flour. Add literally any water and it turns into soup.
The topsoil becomes hydrophobic for a time due to the vaporized oils in plants and a bunch of physics I am fuzzy on. This means they’re less likely to absorb any water during the next rains after a wildfire and you get what are called post-wildfire debris flows (a type of mass wasting/landslide). They’re so predictable that planning for them and predicting where they will occur is a regular part of wildfire response in certain states.
Your boots may sink into soup and add any sort of slope and that hillside is going down.
Ultrahot fires these days tends to loosen up the top foot or two of soil both through root burnout and pure thermal expansion. I know in the burn areas near my house, if you go out a month after the fire your boots will practically disappear in dry topsoil flour. Add literally any water and it turns into soup.
The topsoil becomes hydrophobic for a time due to the vaporized oils in plants and a bunch of physics I am fuzzy on. This means they’re less likely to absorb any water during the next rains after a wildfire and you get what are called post-wildfire debris flows (a type of mass wasting/landslide). They’re so predictable that planning for them and predicting where they will occur is a regular part of wildfire response in certain states.
Your boots may sink into soup and add any sort of slope and that hillside is going down.