The Los Angeles Times reports: “As Pacific Palisades burns, firefighters report hydrants coming up dry: ‘Water supply just dropped’.”

As fires raged across Los Angeles on Tuesday, some firefighters battling the Palisades fire reported on internal radio systems that hydrants in Pacific Palisades were coming up dry. “The hydrants are down,” said one firefighter. “Water supply just dropped,” said another.

L.A. developer Rick Caruso, who owns Palisades Village in the heart of the Westside neighborhood, told The Times he was receiving similar reports from his staff at the shopping center. Caruso said:

“There’s no water in the fire hydrants. The firefighters are there [in the neighborhood], and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. … It should never happen.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

Update (9 January, 2025) by AP:

Janisse Quiñones, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said later at a news conference that 3 million gallons of water were available when the Palisades fire started but the demand was four times greater than “we’ve ever seen in the system.”

Hydrants are designed for fighting fires at one or two houses at a time, not hundreds, Quiñones said, and refilling the tanks also requires asking fire departments to pause firefighting efforts. Mayor Bass said 20% of hydrants went dry.

“People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down. And this guy wanted to politicize it,” Newsom said of Trump on CNN. He contrasted the former president’s accusations with President Joe Biden standing by the devastated communities.

Peter Gleick, senior fellow at the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on global water sustainability, dismissed Trump’s criticism as well.

“Those fights have been going on for a long time, and they have not affected in any way water supply for firefighting in southern California,” Gleick said.

Source: AP