How might a wildfire influence mass wasting? By drying out (removing the water) from the regolith on a slope, wildfires decrease the likelihood of a mass wasting event. A wildfire can dry out the regolith on a slope, making it less cohesive and more likely to travel downward. Wildfires burn only at the bottom of a slope, which oversteepens the slope and induces mass wasting. The ash from the wildfires lands on the slope, adding enough mass to instigate mass wasting. Because plants on a slope bind the regolith with their roots and shield the soil surface from raindrops, a wildfire that destroys these plants would render the soil looser and more susceptible to the erosional forces of rain.