denude

With Southern California’s rainy season fast approaching, their most immediate concern was shoring up their soil-scorched slope to keep the denuded hillside from sliding into their yard.

After that, the next rain then sweeps denuded earth and debris into streams, physically displacing the frogs and other inhabitants and making it harder for them to forage.

Biologists are concerned that if the fire burns intensely in the watershed, denuded earth and ash could fill the creeks when rains come, seriously harming water quality and potentially killing fish.

Since the reservoirs were drained in January, the river has returned to its channel, flowing through denuded lands that have been underwater for generations.

The contrast between forested mountainsides still covered in a healthy amount of snow and the burned, denuded ones drying much more quickly paints a grim picture of the San Gabriels’ future under climate change.