Studies find potential for 'significant destruction' near fire-scarred areas due to increased, uncertain streamflows. 

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But more communities across the country may now need to worry about previously-unforeseen damage to the nation's critical infrastructure – including dams, bridges, highways, and cities – due to increasingly severe storms, supercharged by a warming atmosphere, according to two climate studies released in recent months.

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One study, led by researcher A. Park Williams at UCLA, warns that as increasingly ferocious fires decimate larger forest area – especially once a threshold of 20% of a particular forest is crossed – then those forests will have less ability to hold back or slow stormwater, snow melt, and debris, potentially putting more pressure on dams and other infrastructure caught off guard by stronger streamflow.