California, while less prone to deluges like the one that struck Texas, has its own ingredients for a lethal flash flood.

Montecito suffered a devastating mudslide in 2018. Now the community has rallied to try to make sure the same thing will never happen again.

Torrents like the ones that carved deadly and destructive paths through Montecito on Tuesday are commonly described as mudslides, but geologists and emergency workers call them debris flows.

After a wildfire, the danger continues, especially during torrential rain that can set off fast-moving landslides known as debris flows.

Read on . . . to learn more about the likelihood of debris flows in L.A.'s burn areas and lessons learned from Montecito's devastating mudslide in 2018.

The most recent devastation was in 2018, after the Thomas Fire. A debris flow in Montecito killed 23 people, many of them drowned in waves of mud or crushed by debris.

Rain on burned hillslopes can trigger dangerous floods and debris flows. Those debris flows can move with the speed of a freight train, picking up or destroying anything in their path.

Debris flows are powerful enough to wreck entire buildings. In 2018, post-wildfire rivers of mud and other flotsam swept through Montecito, Calif., destroying this house and roughly 100 others.

While firefighters begin containing the Los Angeles wildfires, the land left behind is at a higher risk of floods and debris flows.

At the annual Raising Our Light remembrance event in Montecito on Thursday, the community came together to support one another and honor the 23 victims who were lost in the 1/9 Debris Flow.