Why fire hydrants ran dry as wildfires ravaged Los Angeles
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A structure burns during the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on Jan. 7. Photo: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images
As devastating wildfires raged across Los Angeles County this week, firefighters battling the blazes encountered fire hydrants that had no water.
Why it matters: The dry fire hydrants sparked political outrage and illustrated just how unprepared municipal water systems are to combat the sorts of large-scale urban wildfires that have become more frequent with climate change.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday ordered an independent investigation into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), the nation's largest municipal utility, over hydrants and water supply issues. DWP provides water for more than four million L.A. residents and serves Pacific Palisades, a wealthy area of Los Angeles where much of the destruction took place.
- "While water supplies from local fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas, losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors," Newsom said. "We need answers to how that happened."
- President-elect Trump has suggested Newsom was to blame for the dry hydrants — claiming without evidence that he blocked water supply to the south of the state with the state's fish conservation efforts. The governor and other experts have sharply rejected the claims.
- "We are looking at a situation that is just completely not part of any domestic water system design," Marty Adams, a former DWP general manager and engineer, told The New York Times.
The big picture: Fire hydrants running out of water isn't unheard of during severe wildfires, said Faith Kearns, a water and wildfire expert with the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. Similar instances were reported during wildfires in Maui, Colorado and Oregon,
- "It's something that we have definitely started to see as, essentially, these wildland fires move into urban areas and become urban conflagrations," Kearns said.
- "Our urban water supply is meant to deal more with things like a single house being on fire," she added.
Why did the fire hydrants run dry?
Firefighters battling the Palisades Fire earlier this week encountered swaths of fire hydrants with no water after the three water tanks supplying the Pacific Palisades ran dry by 3 a.m. Wednesday, Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said at a press briefing later that day.
- The area's water system had been pushed "to the extreme," she said. "Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure."
- The problem persisted for hours while wildfires ravaged the area, the New York Times reported.
Political finger-pointing as a result
Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk skewered California Democrats, and in Trump's case Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), over the wildfires.
- Musk wrote on X Wednesday: "These fires are easily avoidable, but nonsense regulations in California prevent action being taken, so year after year homes burn down and more people die."
- Trump claimed on Truth Social Wednesday that Newsom, a longtime foe, had "refused to sign" a water restoration declaration "that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California" including areas impacted by wildfires.
Newsom in an X post Wednesday called Trump's claim "that a water restoration declaration" exists "pure fiction."
- He said — though not mentioning Trump — during a briefing Friday with President Biden that there have been "hurricane force winds of mis and disinformation, lies."
- "And it breaks my heart as people are suffering and struggling that we're up against those hurricane forces as well," the governor added.
- Newsom also in a letter to Trump Friday invited him to visit and see the damage in L.A.
Would more water have helped?
Even if the water hydrants hadn't run dry, it wouldn't have changed the fact that urban water systems aren't designed to combat multiple, expansive and fast-moving wildfires all at once.
- While every bit of water helps, using fire hydrants and water hoses isn't an effective method of battling "multiple onslaughts of fire under high wind conditions,' she said.
- "Is it going to save a whole neighborhood under those kinds of ... high wind conditions? Probably not."
Fighting wildland fires in urban areas also limits the methods that can be used, like aerial drops, which could damage structures below, she noted.
- High winds can also ground planes, which was the case when a civilian drone hit a Super Scooper aircraft used in the Palisades Fire on Thursday, per an X post from Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Erik Scott.
- That fire was only 11% contained as of Saturday morning.
What we're watching: Kearns said cities need, among other things, high-volume pipes and more backup power to pump waters to higher elevations.
- "Now we face the question of whether and how there would be enough funding, for example, to actually develop urban water systems that were equipped to deal with these kinds of wildfires," she said.
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