Post-Fire Hillslope Erosion – Eaton Fire 2025
Modeled first-year hillslope erosion rates for the January 2025 Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County, California: a pre-fire baseline, a post-fire surface, and the modeled increase, with per-basin and per-watershed summaries. A proof-of-concept demonstrating rapid translation of post-fire science into an open, citable data package.
About this dataset
This package contains modeled first-year hillslope erosion rates in tons/acre/yr across the Eaton Fire burn: a pre-fire RUSLE baseline, a modeled post-fire surface, and the modeled increase between them. Multipliers were learned from a Difference-in-Differences analysis of 16 Southern California fires (2020–2024) and applied to the Eaton Fire's BAER/BARC soil burn severity map; the Eaton Fire was not part of the training set. The modeled footprint covers about 11,400 acres.
This is a prototype, not an operational service. Values are modeled estimates, not field measurements. The data map hillslope erosion only — not debris-flow, flood, or delivered-sediment hazard — and make no treatment recommendations. The data inform decisions; responders make them.
What’s included in this dataset
How to interpret this layer
- Erosion rasters (3) – pre-fire baseline, modeled post-fire surface, and modeled change, Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF, EPSG:26911, tons/acre/yr
- Basin summary the 90 USGS post-fire debris-flow hazard assessment basins carrying VPDC per-basin erosion summaries (GeoJSON + CSV)
- Watershed summary – totals for the four HUC12 watersheds intersecting the burn (CSV)
- Severity-class multipliers – the learned per-class erosion-change multipliers with their full per-fire distributions (CSV)
- Documentation – README, data dictionary, limitations, provenance sidecars, checksummed manifest, license and notices
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Post-Fire Hillslope Erosion – Eaton Fire 2025
Modeled first-year hillslope erosion rates for the January 2025 Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County, California: a pre-fire baseline, a post-fire surface, and the modeled increase, with per-basin and per-watershed summaries. A proof-of-concept demonstrating rapid translation of post-fire science into an open, citable data package.
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Complete data package (ZIP)
Full data package, containing all data in one download: three erosion rasters, basin and watershed summaries, learned multipliers, and full documentation with a checksummed manifest. Mirrors the loose files exactly.
Pre-fire erosion baseline (COG)
Modeled pre-fire annual hillslope soil-loss rate, tons/acre/yr. Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF on the analysis grid (EPSG:26911).
Modeled post-fire erosion (COG)
Modeled first-year post-fire soil-loss rate: pre-fire baseline times the learned severity-class multiplier, tons/acre/yr. EPSG:26911.
Modeled erosion increase (COG)
Modeled increase in soil-loss rate (post minus pre), tons/acre/yr, as delivered by the science team and verified against recomputation. EPSG:26911.
Hazard basins + per-basin erosion summary (GeoJSON)
The 90 USGS post-fire debris-flow hazard assessment basins carrying the VPDC per-basin erosion summary and locality labels. USGS geometry and attributes unmodified, public domain.
Per-basin erosion summary (CSV)
The per-basin erosion summary as a flat table: totals, rates, severity composition, and shares for the 89 basins with modeled burn. Joins to the basins layer on SegmentID.
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Licensing & Attribution
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
You may share and adapt this dataset for noncommercial purposes with attribution under the same license.
Required Attribution:
© 2026 Vibrant Planet Data Commons. Distributed by Vibrant Planet Data Commons. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. USGS and WBD content in this package is U.S. public domain and is not relicensed; see the package NOTICE.
For commercial or special-use requests, email us at contact@vpdatacommons.org
Disclaimer
This dataset is a proof-of-concept prototype. Values are modeled estimates of hillslope erosion only and are not field measurements, debris-flow predictions, or treatment recommendations.
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