River metabolism before, during, and after the 2022 McKinney Fire debris flows on the Klamath River, California

Wildfires alter terrestrial subsidies to rivers, but effects to ecosystem metabolism and dissolved oxygen are not well known due to a paucity of monitoring during and immediately after wildfires. In summer 2022, a high-severity wildfire and heavy rains triggered debris flows into the Klamath River, California, affecting a downstream reach of river monitored by the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources. We used high frequency dissolved oxygen and water temperature data from the Karuk Tribe to model ecosystem metabolism daily from May 2018 through December 2023 to document how the wildfire debris flow affected riverine ecosystem metabolism, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen levels. This data release includes daily metabolism estimates at the Seiad Valley monitoring site on the Klamath River, along with daily turbidity and minimum daily dissolved oxygen levels, which were used to assess the impacts of the wildfire debris flow on ecosystem metabolism and water quality in the 17 months following the wildfire. We also include a 6 day data set of high-frequency surface light, flow, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen data to illustrate the immediate, sub-daily effects of the wildfire debris flow on water quality.