California had forest fires. The forest fires burned trees, shrubs, and grasses. When the plants burned up, the roots of the plants died. The roots of the plants did act as 'soil anchors'. Now that the fire is gone, the rains came and beat upon the soil. Since the soil did not have 'soil anchors' , the soil washed down hill. So now Californians are not so much in danger from fires instead now the people are in danger from being buried under a few feet of mud.