{"id":41335,"date":"2022-07-21T07:21:38","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T07:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=41335"},"modified":"2022-07-21T07:21:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T07:21:38","slug":"pipeline-fire-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/07\/21\/pipeline-fire-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Mudflows at the site of the Pipeline Fire in Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Mudflows at the site of the Pipeline Fire in Arizona<\/h4>\n<p>In the middle of June 2022 the so-called Pipeline Fire broke out in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fs.usda.gov\/coconino\/\">Coconino National Forest in Arizona<\/a>.\u00a0 With a total surface area of 10,737 hectares, this was a large and damaging wildfire.\u00a0 The cause is as yet to be officially determined; last week <a href=\"https:\/\/eu.azcentral.com\/story\/news\/local\/arizona-wildfires\/2022\/07\/14\/matthew-riser-gets-probation-starting-fire-toilet-paper-pipeline-fire\/10063340002\/\">a man was convicted of starting a fire close to his camp<\/a>, less than 100 m from where the fire started.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2020\/08\/11\/california-wildfire-research-1\/\">It is well-documented that wildfires leave the landscape vulnerable to mudflows<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2018\/01\/16\/montecito-debris-flows-1\/\">some of which can be deadly<\/a>.\u00a0 On 15 July 2022 heavy rainfall triggered mudflows in the burnt area of the Pipeline Fire.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u-C_KUnfcUc\">Arizona Game and Fish has posted a dramatic video of one of these to Youtube<\/a>:-<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Flooding overtakes Pipeline Fire burn scar in Flagstaff\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u-C_KUnfcUc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/azdailysun.com\/news\/local\/unraveled-watershed-causes-massive-rockslide-through-neighborhood-near-flagstaff\/article_76bef558-07c2-11ed-99d3-872a0ed44ca5.html\">There is a further excellent video in an article on the mudflows in the Arizona Daily Sun<\/a>.\u00a0 The video is about halfway through the article.\u00a0 The same piece provides useful detail on the nature of the flows:-<\/p>\n<p><em>The boulder field seen at Copeland Wash is the result of the watershed\u2019s natural alluvial fan \u201cunraveling,\u201d explained Coconino County deputy manager Lucinda Andreani. Above the Timberline neighborhood, there was a place in the Copeland Wash that naturally fanned out and allowed water to slow down, spread out, and drop sediment.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But during the extreme flows of Friday\u2019s flood events, this fan could not contain the water coming off the burn scar. Instead of spreading out, the water eroded into and \u201cchannelized\u201d the fan, turning it a source of new sediment \u2014 and boulders up to five feet in diameter \u2014 to be washed downstream.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The image below shows the aftermath of the mudflows in the area of North Copeland Lane (location: 35.313, -111.554):-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41338\" style=\"width: 755px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41338\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41338\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-1.jpg\" alt=\"The aftermath of the mudflows from the scar of the Pipeline Fire in Arizona.  \" width=\"745\" height=\"502\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-1.jpg 745w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-1-300x202.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 745px) 100vw, 745px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41338\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>The aftermath of the mudflows from the scar of the Pipeline Fire in Arizona. <a href=\"https:\/\/azdailysun.com\/news\/local\/unraveled-watershed-causes-massive-rockslide-through-neighborhood-near-flagstaff\/article_76bef558-07c2-11ed-99d3-872a0ed44ca5.html\">Image by Rachel Gibbons, Arizona Daily Sun<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>The scar of the mudflows is visible in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">Planet Labs<\/a> imagery captured on 19 July 2022:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41340\" style=\"width: 809px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41340\" class=\" wp-image-41340\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-2.jpg\" alt=\"The aftermath of debris flows from the Pipeline Scar in Arizona.\" width=\"799\" height=\"438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-2.jpg 1209w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-2-300x165.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-2-1024x562.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Pipeline-2-768x421.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41340\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>The aftermath of debris flows from the Pipeline Scar in Arizona. Image copyright <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">Planet Labs<\/a>, used with permission. Image dated 16 July 2022.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Further mudflow events are likely through the summer rainy season from this, and of course other, wildfire scars. The estimated cost of mitigation of mudflows in the aftermath of the Pipeline Fire alone is estimated to be $20-30 million.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<h4>Reference<\/h4>\n<p>Planet Team (2022). Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">https:\/\/www.planet.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, heavy rainfall triggered mudflows, captured on video, from the scar of the Pipeline Fire in Arizona <!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":41338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[362,469,963,641,725,48,170],"class_list":["post-41335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-video","tag-arizona","tag-featured","tag-landslide-video","tag-mudflow","tag-north-america","tag-usa","tag-wildfire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}