Infiltration, water repellency, and soil moisture content after broadcast burning a forest site in southwest Oregon

Broadcast burning a harvested site in the Mixed-Evergreen Forest Zone of southwest Oregon in June increased the water repellency and decreased the infiltration rate of the surface soil for about 5 months. Both the infiltration rate and the water repellency returned to nearly preburn levels by late November. Measuring water repellency by the apparent contact angle produced closer correlation with changes in infiltration capacity than using the water-drop-penetration-time test in the field. During the first summer, the moisture content of soil in the burned plots remained higher than in the unburned plots.