irefighters battling the Pacific Palisades blaze in Los Angeles are running into empty fire hydrants, hampering their ability to contain the fire.
The Pacific Palisades neighborhood relies on three water tanks, but all three million-gallon tanks were out of water by 3 a.m. Wednesday after an extraordinary amount of water was used, according to Janisse Quiñones, the chief executive officer of the LA Department of Water and Power.
Quiñones said during a Wednesday press conference that the agency is sending more water to the area but is still unable to fill the neighborhoods’ tanks fast enough, according to the LA Daily News. She urged LA residents to conserve water in order to maintain water pressure to fight the fires.
Erik Scott, a fire captain at the LA Fire Department, told SFGATE on Wednesday that the dry fire hydrants were predominantly in the higher elevation areas of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. He could not confirm if water had returned to the fire hydrants.
Poor visibility and high winds have also hampered firefighting efforts by stopping planes or helicopters from dropping water from the air overnight, but helicopters resumed dropping water on the blaze Wednesday, according to the New York Times.
Water systems running out and depleted fire hydrants are not unheard of during wildfire emergencies. During the 2023 Lahaina fire in Hawaii, which was the deadliest American wildfire in a century, fire hydrants also ran out of water and became “largely useless,” according to the New York Times. A water system official told the outlet that destroyed homes worsened the problem when melted water residential pipes released water that further depressurized the entire city’s water system.
President-elect Donald Trump used the lack of water to stoke a political fight with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, claiming that the governor’s decision to protect a fish called smelt prevented water from flowing to Southern California. Trump said Newsom “is the blame” for the lack of water in fire hydrants, although the New York Times said it was actually Biden who created a plan to protect the fish and that there was no evidence showing that decision affected fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades.
