By Erik Porse, director of the California Institute for Water Resources, said that it might have helped had there been more water tanks in the Palisades area — but that ultimately, urban water systems like the ones there are designed for putting out house fires, not widespread blazes.
“We’re looking at a large burned area that’s not just the buildings, but it’s also the entire surrounding landscape. There’s just not enough water that you could store up in tanks to be able to deal with that,” he said.
Los Angeles officials urged residents to cut back on water use.
“I need our customers to really conserve water, not just in the Palisade area, but the whole system, because the fire department needs the water to fight the fires,” Quiñones said.
Her department also issued a 48-hour boil water notice for one ZIP code, which includes Palisades and adjacent communities, on Wednesday.
“Because we’re pushing the water system so hard, our water quality is decreasing,” Quiñones said. “We have a lot of ash in the system, and so please, if you’re going to be drinking water, you need to boil the water.”
Ajami said a drop in water pressure can allow contaminants to enter the system.
“Because pipelines might have cracks here and there, when the pressure goes down, some of those cracks can actually work in reverse — instead of leaking water, they start bringing things from outside into the water,” she said.
Heavy winds and a long dry period in Southern California created ideal fire conditions.
“It does show that in a world where climate change is making these fires more frequent and more devastating, we need to re-evaluate our infrastructure,” said Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
On Truth Social, President-elect Donald Trump blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom for the Los Angeles fires. His post appeared to refer to a policy debate over diverting water from Northern California to farms in the central and southern parts of the state.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him 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 the areas that are currently burning,” Trump wrote.
“On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!” Trump added.
Newsom’s communications director, Izzy Gardon, said in a statement that “there is no such document as the water restoration declaration — that is pure fiction.”
“The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need,” Gardon said.
Gold, who worked in Newsom’s administration from 2019 to 2022, said the problem wasn’t the quantity of water in Southern California’s reserves. Instead, the issue was the infrastructure in that particular area, he said, paired with dried-out vegetation and the lack of rain.
