Impacts of the El Dorado Ranch Park Fire on Geotechnical Properties of Soil
Publication: Geo-Extreme 2021
ABSTRACT
Recorded data along with several studies suggest an ever-increasing trend of wildfires in several areas in the United States. For example, Southern California has been devastated by several wildfires during the 2020 fire season, which has set a new state wildfire record. Limited data indicate that wildfires may pose considerable changes in some geotechnical properties of near surface soil in the fire-affected areas. Valuable information can be obtained from comparison of physical soil samples collected from wildfire impacted and nonimpacted areas. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of the El Dorado Ranch Park Fire on select geotechnical soil properties. The El Dorado Ranch Fire started in September 2020 with burning areas distributed in several cities across Southern California. In this study, laboratory tests were performed on a total of forty (40) soil samples collected from the El Dorado Ranch Park Fire area. A set of grain size distribution, organic content, and pH tests were performed on soil samples collected from the impacted and nonimpacted areas. In addition, hydraulic conductivity tests were performed on the soil present in both the impacted and nonimpacted sample locations. Results indicate that each of the properties tested exhibited larger variability when comparing the wildfire impacted to nonimpacted soil. Findings of this study are believed to support further research and evaluation of the impact wildfires have on geotechnical outcomes and the cascading geohazards such as erosion, mudslides, and debris flow.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
ASTM. ASTM D422-07. (2007). Standard Test Method for Particle Size Analysis of Soils, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. ASTM D702. (2007). Standard Test Method for Quartering of Soil Samples, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. ASTM D2974-00, Standard Test Method for Moisture, Ash, Organic Matter or Peat and Other Organic Material, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA. (2000).
ASTM. ASTM D4220. (2000). Standard Test Method for Preservation and Transportation of Samples, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. ASTM D4972-18. (2018). Standard Test Method for pH of Soils, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA.
Blake, W. H., Droppo, I. G., Humphreys, G. S., Doerr, S. H., Shakesby, R. A., and Wallbrink, P. J. (2007). Structural Characteristics and Behavior of Fire Modified Soil Aggregates. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112(F2), F02020.
CallFire. (2020). Www.Fire.ca.Gov, 1 Oct. 2020, www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/.
Certini, G. (2005). Effects of Fire on Properties of Forest Soils, A Review. Oecologia, 143(1), 1–10.
USDA. (2020a). El Dorado Post-Fire BAER 2500-8 Assessment Report Released - InciWeb the Incident Information System. Inciweb.Nwcg.Gov, 20 Oct. 2020, USDA Forest Service, inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/7217/58544/.
USDA. (2020b) El Dorado BAER Soil Burn Severity Map Released - InciWeb the Incident Information System. Inciweb.Nwcg.Gov, USDA Forest Service, 20 Oct. 2020, inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/7217/57003/.
Fernando-Garcia, V., Marcos, E., Fernández-Guisuraga, J. M., Taboada, A., Suárez-Seoane, S., and Calvo, L. (2019). Impact of Burn Severity on Soil Properties in a Pinus Pinaster Ecosystem Immediately After Fire. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 28(5), 354–364.
Fires, EcoWest. (2020). Ecowest.Org. http://ecowest.org/fires/.
Francos, M., Ubeda, X., Pereira, P., and Alcaniz, M. (2017). Long Term Impact of Wildfire on Soils Exposed to Different Fire Severities. Science of Total Environment, 615, 664–671.
Jian, M., Beril, M., and Ghezzehei, T. A. (2018). Soil Structure Degradation During Low-Severity Burns. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(11), 5553–5561.
Mataix-Solera, J., Cerda, A., Arcenegui, V., Jordan, A., and Zavala, L. M. (2011). Fire Effects on Soil Aggregation - A Review. Earth Science Reviews, 109(1-2), 44–60.
Moody, J. A., Shakesby, R. A., Robichaud, P. R., Cannon, S. H., and Martin, D. A. (2013). Current research issues related to post-wildfire runoff and erosion processes. Earth-Science Reviews, 122(122), 10–37.
Noraini, A. A. (2018). Effect of Wildfire on Geotechnical Properties of Clayey Soil. International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 05(02), 2137–2139.
OC Register (Orange County Register). (2017), Over the last 40 years, there is a surprising trend with California wildfires. (2017, September 14). Orange County Register. https://www.ocregister.com/2017/09/14/you-may-not-believe-it-but-the-number-of-california-wildfires-has-been-going-down/.
Tadza, M. Y. M., and Noraini, A. A. (2016). Effect of wildfire on soil-water characteristics of natural slope containing temperature sensitive silica-alumina polymorph minerals. International Conference of Chemical Engineering & Industrial Biotechnology, 10(17), 157–163.
Varela, M. E., Benito, E., and Keizer, J. J. (2015). Influence of Wildfire Severity on Soil Physical Degradation in Two Pine Forest Stands of NW Spain. Catena, 133, 342–348.
Zavala, L. M., Celis, R. D., and Jordan, A. (2014). How Wildfires Affect Soil Properties, A Brief Review. Cuadernos de Investigacion Feografica, 40(2), 311–331.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Geo-Extreme 2021
Pages: 484 - 494
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Nov 4, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.