As crews battled the fast-spreading fires across the Los Angeles area, they were repeatedly hampered by low water pressure and dry fire extinguishers. These problems have revealed what experts say is a weakness in water supply systems in cities that are not built for wildfires on this scale.
The water system that supplies neighborhoods doesn't have the capacity to deliver that much water in a few hours, said Martin Adams, former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
“This program was never designed to fight wildfires that engulf the community,” said Adams in an interview with The Times.
Limitations of local water systems complicated firefighting efforts in Pacific Palisades, where dozens of fire hydrants were left with little or no water, and in Altadena and Pasadena, served by different utilities and where firefighters said they were dealing with low water pressure.
The water supply system in the Palisades area is designed to flow enough gallons per minute to fight a house fire or a blaze in an apartment or commercial building, Adams said. Then you have a huge fire over the entire community and you have 10 times more fire stations, all pumping water out of the system at the same time.
When a wildfire breaks out, LA firefighters often turn to using an airplane to drop water and contain the fire.
But as the flames spread quickly Tuesday and Wednesday, officials temporarily shut down helicopters dropping water because of Santa Ana's incredibly strong winds, leaving crews reliant on limited water supplies on the ground.
To help, city officials sent tanker trucks to supply water crews to areas without water.
The firefighting efforts have put the water system in the area under severe strain and are “stretching the system,” with four times the normal water demand for 15 hours, said Janisse Quiñones, chief executive officer and chief engineer of the DWP. He said the water pipes rely on three large tanks with 1 million liters each. Hydrants work at higher elevations, but in hilly areas like the Palisades Highlands — where storage tanks store water that flows by gravity to communities below — they run out.
The DWP and city leaders have faced criticism from residents and Rick Caruso, a developer and mayoral candidate, who It is accused of “mismanagement” of the old infrastructure.
Water researchers say, however, that infrastructure limitations are a common feature of many urban water systems.
“Local water systems are typically designed to fight localized, small fires in a limited amount of time,” said Kathryn Sorensen, director of research at Arizona State University's Kyl Center for Water Policy. “They are generally not designed to fight large, long-lasting wildfires.”
The restrictions raise several questions: As fires grow larger and more intense in the West, should storage tanks and other local water infrastructure be expanded to handle them? Where is it? And the prices?
Sorenson said utilities need to look at how much water storage capacity will be developed in the suburbs.
“Given the known risk of wildfires in these mountains, it is reasonable to question whether more water should have been added years and months ago,” he said.
Los Angeles' existing water system is “severely constrained,” said Gregory Pierce, director of the UCLA Water Resources Group. “At least the way we've always built systems and we want to pay for systems, you wouldn't expect systems, like the DWP, to be ready for this.”
The scale of the fires has He has survived past fire disasters in LA. The Palisades Fire broke out quickly and is now out destroyed more than 5,000 houses and other buildingsand the Eaton fire in Altadena and Pasadena damaged or destroyed an additional 4,000-5,000 homes and other structures.
The causes of these and other fires are being investigated.
The fires broke out following a change in weather from wet to very dry, for a short period of time weather whiplash which scientists say increases the dangers of wildfires. Studies have shown that these sudden changes in climate are increasing in frequency and intensity due to human-caused climate change. Scientists have found that global warming is contributing to the largest and most intense wildfires in the western US in recent years.
The DWP, which sent water trucks to help firefighters, said the intensity of the fire was disrupting its emergency plans. The agency's crews could not access the three storage tanks in Palisades, and at one point DWP workers trying to move water to fill the tank had to be evacuated, officials said.
The DWP has urged all customers, particularly those on the Westside, to conserve water to help prioritize fire services.
In Altadena, firefighters encountered similar problems with low water pressure as they tried to slow the spread of the The Eaton fire. Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin said having multiple fire engines fighting multiple fires has resulted in excessive water use.
“In addition, we lost power for a while,” which affected the system, he told reporters on Wednesday.
Even if crews had more water, however, “with those wind storms, we could not have stopped that fire last night,” Augustin said. “Those fluctuating winds were throwing embers miles ahead of the fire, and that's what caused the fire to spread so quickly.”
He said these water problems should be expected when you are dealing with such a large wildfire in an urban area.
“It's very common in a city when you have a fire of this magnitude with this amount of resources, we're going to charge our water utility tax and the water system,” Augustin said. “And if you lose energy which can contribute to stress, it will make it worse.”
Firefighters began communicating over the radio about problems with fire hydrants Tuesday night, hours after the Eaton fire broke out.
“I've got a lot of water problems east and west, and the whole north side of the fire,” one firefighter said on the radio.
“We're getting water to work on,” replied the dispatcher.
Problems reported by firefighters in parts of Altadena have occurred in them areas used by two small suppliersRubio Cañon Land and Water Assn. and Lincoln Avenue Water. Representatives for those providers could not be reached for comment.
The Eaton fire broke out on a nearby property served by the Kinneloa Irrigation District, and the flames caused minor damage to the generator, which is being repaired, said Tom Majich, the district's general manager.
Despite that damage, the district has provided water to firefighters using backup generators and borrowing water from Pasadena Water and Power, Majich said.
“All our pumps were working,” he said. “We've been pumping water throughout the event.”
He said the district's success in keeping water flowing is due to lessons learned from the Kinneloa fire in 1993, when a lack of generators and power outages forced firefighters to drink water. This time, he said his district is ready for emergencies. But he added that problems occur in other areas due to lack of infrastructure.
“To fight a wildfire, you have to have Lake Havasu behind you,” he said. “You can fill the Rose Bowl with water and there won't be enough water.”
“No program can do that,” he said.
Topography is also a factor in communities where water is pumped from the valley up to mountain storage tanks.
Sorensen said any water utility that serves an area with a significant difference in elevation will have the same limitations. Engineers plan water systems with pressure points in 100-foot elevation increments. An area like the Pacific Palisades, for example, rises from sea level to over 1,500 feet.
In Phoenix, by comparison, the city supplies water to a large area with many hills and mountains, and has about 80 pressure points, Sorensen said.
“Phoenix's maximum pressure area is so large and its retention capacity is such that Phoenix can fight many fires for a long time without depressurizing the fire hoses,” he said. “Some of the pressure points are very small and serve only a few customers, sometimes less than a dozen. Storage in these pressure areas will be very limited and there will not be enough water stored to fight more than one small house fire.”
Although decisions about investment in infrastructure are often driven by people, the risk of wildfires in hilly areas is another factor that utilities must consider when building water storage infrastructure, Sorensen said. In the LA area, he said, it would be more expensive to build additional storage “that can reduce or fight wildfires in these high pressure areas, but right now I think a lot of people in LA would say 'it's worth the cost.'”
Pierce said there may be ways to invest in local infrastructure to increase firefighting water capacity in Pacific Palisades if local residents are willing to pay the high cost of such an investment.
“It will come at a great cost,” he said. And he added that such additional water storage may not have prevented a fire of this size and intensity.
Pierce pointed out that these types of water problems have occurred during previous fires in Malibu and elsewhere, where firefighters encountered dry hoses and resorted to using swimming pools or fetching water from the ocean.
“Whether there's a near-term future where we can and should do more, and a long-term future where you can imagine doing more, at a much higher cost, those things are on the table,” Pierce said.
Adams, a former DWP general manager, said the gap is growing between what LA's water system is designed for and the dangers of large, fast-moving fires.
“The interface of the city is changing and we're building old fires, not wildfires blowing through the community,” Adams said. “We need to think about fire protection and what firefighters really need if this is going to be the way of the future.”
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