Abstract

Abstract Cycles of wildfire and rainfall produce sediment‐laden floods that pose a hazard to development and may clog or overtop protective infrastructure, including debris basins and flood channels. The compound, post‐fire flood hazards associated with infrastructure overtopping and clogging are challenging to estimate due to the need to account for interactions between sequences of wildfire and storm events and their impact on flood control infrastructure over time. Here we present data sources and calibration methods to estimate infrastructure clogging and channel overtopping hazards on a catchment‐by‐catchment basis using the Post‐Fire Flood Hazard Model (PF2HazMo), a stochastic modeling approach that utilizes continuous simulation to resolve the effects of antecedent conditions and system memory. Publicly available data sources provide parameter ranges needed for stochastic modeling, and several performance measures are considered for model calibration. With application to three catchments in southern California, we show that PF2HazMo predicts the median of the simulated distribution of peak bulked flows within the 95% confidence interval of observed flows, with an order of magnitude range in bulked flow estimates depending on the performance measure used for calibration. Using infrastructure overtopping data from a post‐fire wet season, we show that PF2HazMo accurately predicts the number of flood channel exceedances. Model applications to individual watersheds reveal where infrastructure is undersized to contain present‐day and future overtopping hazards based on current design standards. Model limitations and sources of uncertainty are also discussed. , Plain Language Summary Communities at the foot of the mountains face an especially dangerous type of flooding called “sediment‐laden floods.” Many such communities in the southwestern U.S. are protected from water floods by flood infrastructure designed to trap sediment at the mouth of mountain canyons and convey only water flows safely past developed areas to a downstream water body. Sediment‐laden floods, which are more forceful and typically larger than water floods, are more likely to happen during storms over burned mountain canyons soon after a wildfire occurs. However, estimating the likelihood that sediment‐laden floods fill and overtop flood infrastructure is challenging since existing sediment‐laden flood models do not explicitly consider the role of flood infrastructure. Here we present the Post‐Fire Flood Hazard Model (PF2HazMo), a model that can estimate the likelihood of post‐fire floods on a canyon‐by‐canyon basis accounting for flood infrastructure. Environmental data collected following a major wildfire is used to apply PF2HazMo to three mountain canyons in southern California, and we find that it predicts the number of floods accurately relative to observed post‐fire flood channel overtopping events. Further, the model is used to predict the frequency of floods due to infrastructure overtopping under both present‐day and future wildfire scenarios. , Key Points Flood risks are heightened by clogging of infrastructure with sediment, which can occur from sequences of storms especially after wildfires A framework for calibration and validation of a post‐fire infrastructure clogging and flood hazard model is presented Model applications reveal whether infrastructure is adequately sized to meet design levels of protection