Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Landsliding follows signatures of wildfire history and vegetative regrowth in a steep coastal shrubland

August 11, 2025

Five years after the deadly and destructive 9 January 2018 Montecito debris flows (Santa Barbara County, California, USA), an atmospheric river storm on 9 January 2023 triggered widespread landsliding that affected many of the same drainages in the Santa Ynez Mountains. Using high-resolution aerial imagery, we identified >10,000 landslides over an ∼160 km2 area. Most of the landslides were shallow (

Publication Year 2025
Title Landsliding follows signatures of wildfire history and vegetative regrowth in a steep coastal shrubland
DOI 10.1130/GES02856.1
Authors Matthew Thomas, Donald N. Lindsay, Jason Kean, Andrew Graber, Rebecca K. Rossi, Jaime Kostelnik, Francis Rengers, Jonathan Y. Schwartz, Brian J. Swanson, Nina S. Oakley, Paul W. Richardson, Alexander E. Morelan, Andrew C. Ritchie, Jonathan Warrick, Lindsey L. Rotche, Brian D. Penserini, Stephen Slaughter
Publication Type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Series Title Geosphere
Index ID 70270177
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization Geologic Hazards Science Center - Landslides / Earthquake Geology
Was this page helpful?