Santa Barbara County Flood Control District prepared for rain after wildfire
SANTA BARBARA, Calif.-- As the Cave Fire was still burning strong Tuesday night and with rain expected to hit just before midnight, Santa Barbara County Flood Control was woking around the clock clearing out water sheds in preparations for the expected rain.
Rainfall hit Santa Barbara County nearly 24 hours after the Cave Fire exploded. With rain following fires comes major concerns for mudslides.
“That seems to be the pattern lately,” said Jon Frye, engineering manager at Santa Barbara County Flood Control District. “These fires are now all times a year it seems and this one happens to be a day before a forecasted rain storm so we do what we will do to the very best of availabilities and respond to what the rain does to the water sheds.”
Jon Frye with the Santa Barbara County Flood Control District says they're working around the clock assessing different areas. The first order of business is to identify the locations of the burn areas and indicate which water sheds are burned.
“The preliminary mapping indicates that there are seven water sheds that are affected by this fire so far,” said Frye. “We are working even today on making sure that those basins are ready for these rains and they will be. We have a constructer already in one basin and we are going to be ready for the storms.”
Brush protects the soil from erosion so when it burns it makes the soil more susceptible to run off.
“The physical circumstance and conditions are so unknown and they types of rainfall events that come across can be uncertain that it is nearly impossible to assign if this then that situation so our approach at county flood control is to assume that we need to get everything ready to go,” said said Frye.
