California is warned to brace for urgent threat that could swallow entire towns – after LA wildfires decimated region

Experts have identified the brand-new threat that may further destroy the Golden State as Californians continue to lose their homes to hellish wildfires. 

At least 25 people have lost their lives and over 12,000 buildings have burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire – which has razed much of the Pacific Palisades, once a stunning coastal enclave home to the rich and famous. 

However, according to the US Geological Survey the worst is yet to come. 

As firefighters battle the flames and continue to diffuse them out, the federal agency claims landslides caused from burn scars left after the fires are out and rainfall returns will become a bigger issue in the future.

‘After compiling one year’s worth of soil and sediment erosion quantities occurring after large California wildfires between 1984 and 2021, scientists found that postfire erosion has accelerated over time, particularly in northern California, likely reflecting both the increase in wildfire in the state and the frequency of wet water years,’ the study read.

The USGS also said post-wildfire landslides can move great loads on objects in their paths, strip vegetation, block drains, damage structures and endanger human life.

Extreme blazes can also destabilize pre-existing, deep-seated landslides over long periods of time. 

According to Costas Synolakis, a professor of civil engineering at USC, the landslide danger will be highest in Pacific Palisades as there is no debris basin in the area.

‘Palisades is going to be an area that people need to be on the watch out for landslides because the valley walls are steep. 

‘The houses that did survive the wildfire in the Palisades could also be in great danger of a severe rainstorm undercutting the foundation. 

‘Homes near creeks and steep hills could also contribute a lot of debris to landslides,’ he told ABC. 

The debris from the potential landslides could also cause serious environmental damage. 

In the short run, flowing debris can choke rivers and streams and deprive fish of oxygen. 

Sediment runoff can also fill reservoirs and take up water storage space – which in turn could damage flood control infrastructure and threaten nearby communities vulnerable to flash flooding. 

Hugh Safford, a research fire ecologist at the University of California, Davis said since the fires have left mostly human-made structures into dust, the materials used to construct them will deposit toxins into the air and ground as they combust.

‘This is going into the local creek systems and in the local soils,’ Safford told ABC, adding that many of the homes built before the 1980s likely are filled with asbestos.

Debris from the scorched houses that once stood on edgy cliffs is also expected to end up in the ocean through the wind and sea, Synolakis predicts. 

‘Researchers are already monitoring soil to see what kinds of heavy metals and other toxins have seeped in during the combustion process. 

‘It won’t be long before the toxins end up in the ocean through the watershed,’ he told the publication. 

Glen Martin, a spokesperson for the environmental nonprofit California Water Impact Network commented on the predications and said: ‘It’s not surprising but it’s good to see it quantified by USGS. 

‘It points out what the bigger problem is, which is, California — your water supplies, your reservoirs, your fisheries are already on the brink and these catastrophic fires are going to push it over for a variety of reasons,’ he told LA Times. 

An influx of sediment from burned houses can potentially both decrease a basin’ capacity and degrade its water quality. 

The agency’s research noted that 57 percent of the state’s post-fire erosion occurred upstream of reservoirs, ‘indicating a growing risk to water security’. 

‘These results indicate increasing pressure on water resources from post-fire erosion with ongoing climate change,’ study authors wrote. 

Calling it an ‘unvirtuous cycle’, Martin believes that more fires would lead to more eroded soil, causing more infrastructure failures and ultimately less water. 

It ‘has huge consequences for everything from fisheries to water supply, and this study confirms that,’ Martin said. 

The rising natural disasters and their long term effects issues have caused homeowners to fear for their life and hopeless about the future. 

‘We can’t build seawalls high enough to protect us forever. So, in the long run, it’s either going to be managed retreat or unmanaged retreat. It’s up to each community to decide,’ Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz told the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Pacifica resident Cindy Abbott, a vocal supporter of managed retreat despite owning a home in the hazard zone added: ‘We’re running out of time. 

‘Forty or 50 years from now, future generations might not have the luxury to talk about what we’re talking about today. It’ll be too late.’

And it seems like the aftermath of the disastrous blaze has begun in the Golden State. 

A home in Los Angeles which was spared during the apocalyptic fires was split in two by a mudslide as a consequence of the blaze.

The oceanfront $2million one bed, one bath home in Pacific Palisades survived the fire which destroyed some 5,300 other properties in the area, charred 23,000 acres of land and killed at least nine people.

But just a day after the threat of fire began to ease, a mudslide split the home straight down the middle in a cruel reminder to residents that they’re not yet out of the woods.

Residents in fire-ravaged communities have been warned the risk of mudslides are heightened and they should be on alert for any warning signs.

Mark Pestrella, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, spoke of the risk of landslides on January 16.

He said: ‘A warning to all those residents no matter where you live in LA County: if you have slopes behind your homes or if you’re located on top of a slope, these slopes have become fragile.

‘The soil supporting your home has all become fragile due to the events we’ve had, winds included.

‘There are mud and debris flow hazards that are existing even when it’s not raining so we want people to be very careful.’

He told residents to stay on high alert for ‘any of these conditions in and around their property – in the fire area or outside.’

‘Please contact 211 and we will send a team of geologists and soil engineers and flood control engineers to look at your property and make an assessment to safeguard your property,’ he said.

The wildfires have disrupted the soil and gravel across Los Angeles, pushing ‘debris into the streets and into properties,’ Pestrella said.

Now, some of this material is helping to support some of the structures which were not razed during the fires. 

The water that is used to fight the fires elevates the risk of landslides, turning otherwise dry soil into mud.

‘You can imagine the amount of water which was placed in the firefighting effort,’ he noted. ‘There were also gas lines and water lines which were destroyed.’ 

Officials are working to maintain any slopes around fire-ravaged communities in an effort to avoid dangerous conditions. 

However Helen Dow, a research geologist with USGS and the study’s lead author believes that documenting the problem, its source and after effects can help agencies improve their mitigation efforts. 

‘Knowing this is a problem that’s worsening in Northern California, and having an idea of the size of the problem both in Northern and Southern California, might inform how agencies think about fire,’ she said.

‘What needs to be done is increased fuels control on both public and private lands,’ Martin added, ‘so that when we do get fires, they aren’t absolutely devastating, burning down to mineral earth, turning the landscape into essentially a moonscape.’

After the Thomas fire which hit southern California in 2017, two people were killed as a result of the inferno but a further 23 died from the landslide which followed.