As rains continue likely there will be more flooding in both new and older burned areas

I'm referring to all over California wherever there has been fire the last two years or so. This is an El Nino Year after all, and the rains are just beginning. It's historic that we always lose many many more people to flash flooding than fires.

Fires at night you can see from everywhere around because they glow for miles. So, even if you can't see them through the smoke during the day you can almost always see where they are enough at night to get away in time  (as long as the winds aren't blowing too hard) in your direction so you cannot get away. But, flash flooding can happen any time it rains hard enough in California and you don't usually have much warning if any at all which is why California loses so many more people to flash flooding than fires always. And this is just as true of Southern California as northern California and always has been at least since the 1950s and before.

So, the worst one two punch is bad fires right before a heavy rain which often can create new flood plains where they didn't exist before like what happened in Montecito last January 2018. The Thomas fire when it burned above Montecito caused a permanent flood plain (at least lasting the next 5 to 10 years or more) where people aren't allowed to rebuild their houses on their properties where they were destroyed because of this. Of course 10 to 20 years from now this might change but not right now.