The Objective of the SMART-R deployment to Southern California is to gather very high resolution rainfall data sets with which USGS scientists will refine their thresholds for debris flows.

The object of the study is the Harvard Burn area in the Verdugo Mountains. This area was burned by a fire on September 29 2005 and encompassed about 844 acres. A debris flow already occurred in this region on October 17 2005 when sediment-laden flows went down Country Club Drive. This debris flow was triggered by less than 0.3" of precip in about 20 minutes.