Post-wildfire Sediment Discharge
and Infrastructure Impact

GEER Webinar
January 16, 2018  |  1pm - 2pm CT

Presenters

Jeff Keaton (Amec Foster Wheeler)

Scott Anderson (BGC Engineering)

Joe Gartner (BGC Engineering)

Overview

Wildfire has been increasing in severity and occurring over wider areas. GEER has mobilized missions to three of wildfire areas that impacted infrastructure (Manitou Springs, CO, August 2013; Southern California December 2014; and Northwest Los Angeles County, CA, October 2015). These missions used fire burn area maps and precipitation information from rain gauges and weather radar. Social media proved to be valuable for insights into what happened.

The GEER webinar will comment briefly on some of the extensive fires that occurred in 2017, describe online sources of burn information that help define where sediment is relatively likely to originate in future storm events, explain the availability and utility of weather radar data, and give examples of social media that were helpful in understanding the sediment yield process and extent of damage to infrastructure before the sediment was cleaned up. The webinar will conclude with some infrastructure features that may be exposed to damage in future storms because of the wildfires in late summer and fall 2017.

The presentation part of the webinar is expected to be no more than 45 minutes, leaving at least 15 minutes for discussion.

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