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Research Vessel Off Manhattan Beach Coast Collects Critical Fire Debris

Jan 15, 2025 10:48PM ● By Jeanne Fratello

(Researchers Alitzah Saenz and Nicolas Concha-Saiz from NOAA Fisheries, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, hold up ash and debris collected from the ocean during the L.A. wildfires.)

How will the L.A. wildfires affect the ocean? A research vessel that happened to be off the Manhattan Beach coast during the fires was able to collect ash and debris samples that may be critical for future study.

The CalCOFI (California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations program) winter research team had departed San Diego in early January and just happened to be near Manhattan Beach at the peak of the devastating L.A. wildfires on January 8 and 9.

When crew members saw the billowing smoke and felt ashes raining down, they immediately recognized that the size and scope of the fire was extremely unusual. They sprang into action, using plankton nets to gather samples of ash and debris from the water, and then separated the collections into test tubes for further analysis.

 


 

As it turned out, the ship was the only known research vessel in the area at the time, so their initial samples are certain to be extremely valuable as further studies are done on the effects of the fires - especially the long-term impact on ocean and marine life.

"It was pure coincidence  - we were at the right place at a horrible time," Rasmus Swalethorp, CalCOFI's director of ship operations, told MB News.

"This Really Looks Extreme"


Swalethorp said that they crew had heard about the fires as they were sailing northward, and once they came around Catalina Island, they immediately realized the enormous scope of the disaster.

"We started seeing with our own eyes these huge yellow smoke plumes in the sky," said Swalethorp. "We thought, 'This really looks extreme.' So we started ramping up our collections, trying to characterize what might be coming out of the sky." 

Swalethorp continued, "While we were sailing toward Manhattan Beach, we could see the sky getting darker and darker and full of smoke. By the time we reached Manhattan Beach, the sun had set, and we could still see ash falling everywhere. It was certainly very unusual for us."

The ship then moved further offshore, but the crew kept observing ash and debris in the water reaching nearly to San Nicolas Island, which is about 60 miles from Manhattan Beach. 

(Satellite image of smoke on January 9, 2025, via NASA.)


"As far as we could tell from our sampling, the debris we were finding was spread across a large area, essentially forming a hexagon connecting Manhattan Beach, Catalina Island, San Nicolas, Channel Islands National Marine Park, and Ventura," said Swalethorp.


"It's Everything That People Lost"


According to Swalethorp, the ash and debris that the crew was collecting had a very strong odor.

"This is not like a bonfire when you are camping, with a nice wood smell," he said. "The first thing that came to mind was that this smelled like burned electronics. But it's not just that; it’s everything that people lost. So obviously this ash is going to be associated with a lot of other things that are harmful to us humans and to the terrestrial and marine environments."

Swalethorp said that while the larger debris was floating, the finer ash would initially settle on the surface, and then whenever surface tension of the water was broken (through dipping of the nets or other movement), the ash particles would sink very rapidly. "It's possible that a lot of ash has been sinking in these most impacted areas," he said. 

(A sample of ash and debris with small, round fish eggs visible in the mix.)


That ash could pose an immediate danger to fish eggs, many of which can be seen in the samples that are collected (they look like little white balls). There is a lot of spawning going on right now, Swalethorp said, and fish embryos are very susceptible to being exposed to whatever’s in that ash.

 

In the longer term, according to Swalethorp, researchers are going to need to watch how the particles move their way up the food chain, from smaller organisms to the larger organisms that consume them. This opens up a potentially new area of research, he said, because there are very few studies on the effects of urban wildfires on ocean life.


((Members of the crew on the CalCOFI winter research expedition collecting water samples from the CTD Rosette. Scientists Luke Irza and volunteers Nils Gunbor and Ben Gire, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego)


The crew is now planning to make a slight change to their itinerary, stopping off in San Luis Obispo to bring additional equipment on board that can better capture samples that might still be in the air or water. They will then make a return trip to Manhattan Beach to collect more samples from the area.


The Most Studied Waters in the World


The California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations program, known as CalCOFI, is the world's longest running marine research program. The program aims to serve as "our eyes and ears under the ocean," sampling hundreds of environmental and biological parameters from the coast to over 300 miles offshore, from the surface down to thousands of feet deep, and from San Diego up the coast – to assess the status and health of the ocean and better understand how the ocean in California is changing.

CalCOFI plays a pivotal role in monitoring ocean health and investigating climate phenomena like El Niño and La Niña. Because of CalCOFI, California's waters are the most studied in the world, showcasing California's global leadership on ocean issues.

CalCOFI's current cruise is taking place on the Reuben Lasker, a 208-food NOAA vessel used for marine research. It is designed with a low sound signature to reduce reactions of fish to the presence of the ship, and its multi-frequency scientific sonars provide the ability to conduct acoustic surveys that can distinguish fish types, estimate biomass, determine fish school shapes, and provide data on sea floor topography. 

(Scientists Katherine Whittaker, Dr. Tammy Russell and Isabelle Jeuris from the Farallon Institute and Scripps Institution of Oceanography observing marine mammals and birds heading towards Manhattan Beach wearing masks and goggles for smoke protection.)

There are currently 39 crew members aboard the ship.






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