Abstract
After a wildfire, understanding a landscape's response to precipitation is essential. Land that has been stripped of its vegetation and soils that inhibit infiltration create a situation that can have disastrous effects, including severe erosion and landslides. Increased sediment in streams from soil erosion can result in fish kills and degraded water quality. Soil scientists play a key role in post-wildfire assessments and rehabilitation. The formal team assigned to assess post-fire landscape damage is known as a BAER (Burned Area Emergency Response) team. BAER teams must complete their assessment within 7 d of a fire's containment, and having soil survey data available makes the job much easier. One of the tasks for soil scientists on BAER teams is to assess the potential for erosion in areas damaged by the fire. The Smokey BEHR (BAER Erosion Hazard Rating) Toolkit for GIS isolates soil survey data within the fire perimeter and distills some of the most important soil attributes from SSURGO (Soil Survey Geographic) data into a readily usable format. Combined with burn severity information from a Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC) raster layer, areas with high erosion hazard can be quickly identified and targeted for treatment.
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