Why did fire hydrants go 'dry' for crews fighting an LA fire?

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) - As firefighters battled the present astir 16,000-acre Palisades Fire Tuesday, officials accidental the monolithic request for h2o led to crews dealing with dozens of “dry” hydrants that had diminished h2o unit and, successful immoderate cases, nary h2o astatine all.  

The Palisades Fire, which has destroyed an estimated 1,000 structures, was archetypal reported astatine astir 10:30 a.m. connected Jan. 7 successful the 1100 artifact of North Piedra Morada Drive.  

In a Wednesday greeting quality conference, Chief Executive and Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Janisse Quiñones said that by 3 a.m. connected Jan. 8, each one-million-gallon h2o retention tanks that proviso the Palisades hydrants “went dry.”  

Of those 3 tanks, the archetypal ran adust conscionable earlier 5 p.m. Tuesday, the 2nd earlier 9 p.m. and the 3rd aboriginal Wednesday morning.  

“We had tremendous request connected our systems successful the Palisades,” Quiñones said astatine the property conference. “We pushed the strategy to the extreme. Four times the mean request was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our h2o pressure.”  

On X, formerly Twitter, L.A. Fire Department Public Information Officer Erik Scott acknowledged the h2o challenges crews were dealing with and added that LADWP proactively filled each disposable h2o retention tanks.  

“However, h2o availability was impacted astatine higher elevations, which affected immoderate occurrence hydrants owed to constricted replenishment of h2o tanks successful those areas,” he said. “The utmost request caused a slower refill complaint for these tanks.” 

Quiñones said overmuch the aforesaid thing, explaining that the 3 monolithic retention tanks assistance with h2o unit coming from the hydrants and that due to the fact that truthful overmuch h2o was being utilized astatine little elevations, the tanks astatine higher elevations were not capable to capable accelerated enough.  

“The depletion of h2o was faster than we tin supply h2o successful the trunk line,” she said.  

Some, similar real-estate developer and erstwhile L.A. mayoral campaigner Rick Caruso, were speedy to knock LAWDP leaders.  

The proprietor of dozens of real-estate holdings successful Southern California, including the Palisades Village mall, Caruso called the contented a “systemic occupation of the city” and said that “our infrastructure is old,” the Los Angeles Times reported.  

The L.A. Councilmember who represents the Palisades, Traci Park, besides blasted DWP, calling the hydrant contented a “chronic under-investment successful the metropolis of Los Angeles,” according to The Times.  

For its part, DWP was sending 20 tankers with h2o to enactment firefighters successful the Palisades firefight, though the tankers were forced to refill successful other, much distant areas.  

“We are perpetually moving that h2o to the occurrence section to get them arsenic overmuch h2o arsenic we can,” Quiñones said.  

In a announcement from the city's NotifyLA System, officials advised residents of the Palisades and adjacent communities of the wellness risks the precocious request for h2o poses, saying successful a statement:

"The unprecedented request for h2o successful the Pacific Palisades implicit a sustained play for firefighting efforts has resulted successful important debased h2o unit successful your area. As is communal successful galore wildfire situations, this reduces h2o prime and tin airs a wellness risk. LADWP and the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water powerfully counsel consumers successful the 90272 zip code and adjacent communities northbound Of San Vicente Blvd. to ONLY USE BOILED TAP WATER OR BOTTLED WATER FOR DRINKING AND COOKING PURPOSES until further notice."