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Park Post-Fire BAER Soil Burn Severity Map Released

August 26, 2024

Forest Service Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) and California State Watershed Emergency Response Team (WERT) specialists recently coordinated and completed their data gathering and analysis for the Park Fire burned area to produce a soil burned severity (SBS) map. The development of the SBS map for the Park Fire was an interagency collaboration between California WERT and the Park BAER team. 

This soil burn severity map and data display categories of unburned/low, moderate, and high. Approximately 57% of the total 430,933 acres analyzed by the BAER team are either unburned and/or low soil burn severity, while 36% sustained a moderate soil burn severity, and about 7% identified as high soil burn severity. NOTE: As of August 26, 2024, InciWeb Park Fire information currently shows the fire at 82% containment and 429,603 acres.

There are several types of fire severity and intensity maps that you may see. Although they look different for the same fire, they may also all be accurate. This is because fire severity or intensity are different measures of the fire effects on a specific resource such as soils, tree canopies, vegetation or wildlife habitat. Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) maps are primarily measures of fire effects on soils.

The BAER assessment team used initial remote sensing imagery with their field validated soils data, to develop and produce a map showing soil burn severity levels for the burned areas The SBS is broken into four different classes: unburned (green), low severity (blue), moderate severity (yellow), and high severity (red). For more information on what these different SBS classifications mean, see BAER Information Brief at: Calnf Park Postfire Baer - | InciWeb (wildfire.gov).

The BAER team rely on their refined soil burn severity map to produce data which they are using in their subsequent modeling and determination of post fire runoff and sedimentation. The BAER teams and the US Geological Survey (USGS) both utilize the soil burn severity map as an analysis tool to estimate post-fire flows and debris flow probability. In specific areas that experienced moderate to high burn severity, there could be increased runoff from steep hillslopes and resultant increases in post-fire soil erosion and potential debris flows.

The Park soil burn severity (SBS) map can be downloaded at the Park Post-Fire BAER InciWeb site: Calnf Park Postfire Baer Information | InciWeb (wildfire.gov) as a JPEG or PDF version under the “Maps” tab.

BAER SAFETY MESSAGE: Everyone near and downstream from the burned areas should remain alert and stay updated on weather conditions that may result in heavy rains and increased water runoff. Flash flooding may occur quickly during heavy rain events--be prepared to act. Current weather and emergency notifications can be found at the National Weather Service website: www.weather.gov/sto/.

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