What to do after your hillside has burned to control erosion. Ok. Your home survived the fire. What to do with the bare hillside? DO NOT SEED! Seeding grasses and other weeds does not help the erosion, it actually causes greater erosion and can allow another fire next year that was worse than the first. SEEDING DOES NOT WORK! The seeds germinate after the second or third rain. The wildflowers germinate about the same time. If the weeds germinate before or at the same time as the wildflowers, the wildflowers will fail and you'll have a weedy mess that can burn the very next dry season. When you do not seed after a fire, all the erosion stops after the first few rains. There is no documentation supporting seeding after fires for erosion control, nothing, zilch, zip. All the research points to seeding destroying the ecosystem of the site and contributing to more erosion and fires. Most, if not all, the erosion occurs at the time of the first heavy rain. The whole hillside is coming at you at this time. A slope like the one in the picture can produce tons of material coming down on the first heavy rain. Sandbags, check dams and making sure your grades and drains work are what you need to do before the first rain. You cannot stop the first flush, but you have a chance to slow it down or divert it. How can you control tons of material moved at ten to fifty miles per hour? The bottom of the pictured slope had three to four foot of material piled onto the road. A few check dams and some sand bags built into an angle dam would have controlled the flow enough to keep the debris off of the road. You will not be able to control all of it, but there is a big difference between six inches of debris against the house, deck, pool or six feet of it. A simple check dam consists of three, six foot 5/8 inch rebar or six foot tee posts driven into the channel and the burn debris that is laying about woven between the posts. The goal is to not stop the flow, but slow it down from fifty miles per hour to five or so miles per hour, so the sediment can drop out of the flow and stay on the slope. More is not better, the material needs to flow through it or around it. Picture a bunch of minivans of water driving as fast as they can at you. Just like in the desert flash floods. If this slope is above you I would have no problem crossing fences to do this. If it is private property ask for permission, the owner is generally liable for the stuff that dumps on you, but he's also got his own set of problems so, HELP HIM, and yourself. If it's government land, just do it. BUT NO STRAW, HAY or other such garbage; those do not work anyway and make for weeds later on. (Instead of just mud into the house you'll have a 100-200 lb. bale of wet hay.) The goal is to slow the runoff down, not stop it. Stopping the runoff will not work; hay bales will end up somewhere else, and even if they do stay in place, the silt builds up behind them and blows over them; hay bales just delay the problem, not to mention they are a great source of weeds. You want a weave about as dense as a venetian blind. The holes/slits/weave should be between an inch to 2 inches. You can throw some boulders into the weave if you wish. You'll need to build one of these contraptions every twenty feet on steep slopes, every hundred feet on small slopes. Every gully needs one. The bigger and steeper the gully the more you'll need and the looser the weave needs to be. You are not making dams! You're trying to slow the water down. A the bottom of each gully that points at you make a double wall of sand bags that has an outlet pointed where the flow can cause the least damage. Mother nature can fix most hillsides without your meddling. Leave the slope alone and you get wildflowers. Mess with it and you get weeds and greater mudslides! Many of the plants left as blackened stumps on the slopes will sprout and grow from the base into new plants and prevent erosion on the slopes, just as they did before the fire. Remember, after just a couple of rains, mother nature has 'fixed' the problem all by her little self.
After the fire the slope can look like this, sometimes better, sometimes worse. The soil can look like a fired brick, literally, but the native wildflowers still come up. The California native wildflowers are naturally adapted to the high heat from wildfires. See Picture below	Many of the slopes will be lush with fire-following wildflowers after just a few rains. See Picture below
Picture below: This is what the slope looks like if you don't seed after a fire. This vegetation is made up of various larger sizes of material, mostly green, that burns much more slowly and is much harder to start on fire. This vegetation is made up of many kinds of plants, with large tops and very deep and wide root systems preventing erosion.	Picture below: This is what the slope looks like if you seed it. Anything can ignite this slope, even in December or March. This vegetation is made up of tiny, dry small pieces of material that burn super fast and is super easy to start-on -fire. Also, this vegetation is made up of pretty much all the same kinds of plants, has small thin tops and shallow root systems and does not prevent erosion, but increases erosion. An poorly rooted annual prairie that can burn at a rate exceeding a 1000 acres A MINUTE.
“After the introduction of aggressive annual grasses, the probability of fire at short intervals increased. Unlike the majority of native annuals, which flush in the 1^st year and fade quickly, grasses such as Bromus rubens persist indefinitely in open patches in the chaparral and create denser and more uniform cover better able to carry fire.” Zedler, P.H., C.R. Gautier, and G.S. McMaster. 1983. "Seeding has a low probability of reducing the first season erosion because most of the benefits of the seeded grass occurs after the initial damaging runoff events." Robichaud, Peter R., Jan L. Beyers and Daniel G. Neary “As seeding after fire does not boost total plant cover and limits conifer tree establishment, it appears to do little to reduce the risk of soil erosion. It also appears to inhibit native shrub and herb reestablishment. These substantial effects appear likely to alter plant communities well beyond the lifetimes of the seeded species.” Tania Schoennagel Madison Ecology Group “Surface runoff from all grass-covered lysimeters exceeded 100-fold that of natural chaparral slopes...”James Patric. Water Relations of Lysimeter-Grown Wildland Plants in Southern California.. Forest Service, 1974 It is common in California to have masses of poppies and lupines after a fire. If you really, really have to seed, (some people have too much money, and no brains!) plant poppies and lupines, because they do not mess things up nearly as bad as the weed seed in seed mixes sold as 'burn mix'. Although, this mix of weed seeds can burn again at anytime, so I guess 'burn mix' is named correctly! For planting slopes go here For Information about firescaping What to do if you are in a fire area. A list of California native plants that tolerant of fire ... Weed control and a California Native Plant garden If you do not believe us, The U.S. Forest Service says “the wisdom of ryegrass seeding has been questioned for decades, and recent literature indicates that postfire seeding of Italian ryegrass may cause more harm than good. The purpose of the seeding is to control erosion which is often severe during winter rains on steep slopes in California. However, studies have shown that the seeding is not effective at controlling erosion the first year and may even increase erosion in succeeding years.” CNPS Policy on Seeding after Wildfire says “significant evidence is available that seeding of burned wildlands is ineffective at protecting life and property and can impair the recovery of native plant communities.” I personally view post-fire seeding as a crime against nature although sometimes it's just greed.

What to do after your hillside has burned to control erosion.

Ok. Your home survived the fire. What to do with the bare hillside?

DO NOT SEED! Seeding grasses and other weeds does not help the erosion, it actually causes greater erosion and can allow another fire next year that was worse than the first. SEEDING DOES NOT WORK! The seeds germinate after the second or third rain. The wildflowers germinate about the same time. If the weeds germinate before or at the same time as the wildflowers, the wildflowers will fail and you'll have a weedy mess that can burn the very next dry season.

When you do not seed after a fire, all the erosion stops after the first few rains.

There is no documentation supporting seeding after fires for erosion control, nothing, zilch, zip. All the research points to seeding destroying the ecosystem of the site and contributing to more erosion and fires.

Most, if not all, the erosion occurs at the time of the first heavy rain. The whole hillside is coming at you at this time. A slope like the one in the picture can produce tons of material coming down on the first heavy rain.

Sandbags, check dams and making sure your grades and drains work are what you need to do before the first rain. You cannot stop the first flush, but you have a chance to slow it down or divert it.

How can you control tons of material moved at ten to fifty miles per hour? The bottom of the pictured slope had three to four foot of material piled onto the road. A few check dams and some sand bags built into an angle dam would have controlled the flow enough to keep the debris off of the road.
You will not be able to control all of it, but there is a big difference between six inches of debris against the house, deck, pool or six feet of it.

A simple check dam consists of three, six foot 5/8 inch rebar or six foot tee posts driven into the channel and the burn debris that is laying about woven between the posts. The goal is to not stop the flow, but slow it down from fifty miles per hour to five or so miles per hour, so the sediment can drop out of the flow and stay on the slope. More is not better, the material needs to flow through it or around it.

Picture a bunch of minivans of water driving as fast as they can at you. Just like in the desert flash floods.

If this slope is above you I would have no problem crossing fences to do this. If it is private property ask for permission, the owner is generally liable for the stuff that dumps on you, but he's also got his own set of problems so, HELP HIM, and yourself. If it's government land, just do it. BUT NO STRAW, HAY or other such garbage; those do not work anyway and make for weeds later on. (Instead of just mud into the house you'll have a 100-200 lb. bale of wet hay.) The goal is to slow the runoff down, not stop it. Stopping the runoff will not work; hay bales will end up somewhere else, and even if they do stay in place, the silt builds up behind them and blows over them; hay bales just delay the problem, not to mention they are a great source of weeds. You want a weave about as dense as a venetian blind. The holes/slits/weave should be between an inch to 2 inches. You can throw some boulders into the weave if you wish.

You'll need to build one of these contraptions every twenty feet on steep slopes, every hundred feet on small slopes. Every gully needs one. The bigger and steeper the gully the more you'll need and the looser the weave needs to be. You are not making dams! You're trying to slow the water down. A the bottom of each gully that points at you make a double wall of sand bags that has an outlet pointed where the flow can cause the least damage.

Mother nature can fix most hillsides without your meddling. Leave the slope alone and you get wildflowers. Mess with it and you get weeds and greater mudslides!

A Coyote bush crown sprouting Many of the plants left as blackened stumps on the slopes will sprout and grow from the base into new plants and prevent erosion on the slopes, just as they did before the fire.

Remember, after just a couple of rains, mother nature has 'fixed' the problem all by her little self.

After the fire the slope can look like this, sometimes better, sometimes worse. The soil can look like a fired brick, literally, but the native wildflowers still come up. The California native wildflowers are naturally adapted to the high heat from wildfires.

See Picture below

North slope of Chaparral after fire.

Many of the slopes will be lush with fire-following wildflowers after just a few rains.

See Picture below

A chaparral north slope recovering after a fire

Picture below: This is what the slope looks like if you don't seed after a fire. This vegetation is made up of various larger sizes of material, mostly green, that burns much more slowly and is much harder to start on fire. This vegetation is made up of many kinds of plants, with large tops and very deep and wide root systems preventing erosion.

A hillside of native plants should look like this.

Picture below: This is what the slope looks like if you seed it. Anything can ignite this slope, even in December or March. This vegetation is made up of tiny, dry small pieces of material that burn super fast and is super easy to start-on -fire. Also, this vegetation is made up of pretty much all the same kinds of plants, has small thin tops and shallow root systems and does not prevent erosion, but increases erosion. An poorly rooted annual prairie that can burn at a rate exceeding a 1000 acres A MINUTE.

This is what you get if you seed with 'burn mix' after a fire.

This picture of fire followers shows, Chia, Poppies and Lupines.

“After the introduction of aggressive annual grasses, the probability of fire at short intervals increased. Unlike the majority of native annuals, which flush in the 1^st year and fade quickly, grasses such as Bromus rubens persist indefinitely in open patches in the chaparral and create denser and more uniform cover better able to carry fire.” Zedler, P.H., C.R. Gautier, and G.S. McMaster. 1983.

"Seeding has a low probability of reducing the first season erosion because most of the benefits of the seeded grass occurs after the initial damaging runoff events." Robichaud, Peter R., Jan L. Beyers and Daniel G. Neary

“As seeding after fire does not boost total plant cover and limits conifer tree establishment, it appears to do little to reduce the risk of soil erosion. It also appears to inhibit native shrub and herb reestablishment. These substantial effects appear likely to alter plant communities well beyond the lifetimes of the seeded species.” Tania Schoennagel Madison Ecology Group

“Surface runoff from all grass-covered lysimeters exceeded 100-fold that of natural chaparral slopes...”James Patric. Water Relations of Lysimeter-Grown Wildland Plants in Southern California.. Forest Service, 1974

It is common in California to have masses of poppies and lupines after a fire. If you really, really have to seed, (some people have too much money, and no brains!) plant poppies and lupines, because they do not mess things up nearly as bad as the weed seed in seed mixes sold as 'burn mix'. Although, this mix of weed seeds can burn again at anytime, so I guess 'burn mix' is named correctly!

For planting slopes go here

For Information about firescaping

What to do if you are in a fire area.

A list of California native plants that tolerant of fire ...

Weed control and a California Native Plant garden

If you do not believe us,

The U.S. Forest Service says “the wisdom of ryegrass seeding has been questioned for decades, and recent literature indicates that postfire seeding of Italian ryegrass may cause more harm than good. The purpose of the seeding is to control erosion which is often severe during winter rains on steep slopes in California. However, studies have shown that the seeding is not effective at controlling erosion the first year and may even increase erosion in succeeding years.”

CNPS Policy on Seeding after Wildfire says “significant evidence is available that seeding of burned wildlands is ineffective at protecting life and property and can impair the recovery of native plant communities.”

I personally view post-fire seeding as a crime against nature although sometimes it's just greed.

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What to do after your hillside has burned to control erosion.

Ok. Your home survived the fire. What to do with the bare hillside?

When you do not seed after a fire, all the erosion stops after the first few rains.

Santa Margarita Pricelist

Escondido Pricelist View Information About Plants, (you can order the plants from each plant page)

Escondido Pricelist

View Information About Plants, (you can order the plants from each plant page)