California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that state water and firefighting officials will independently investigate the cause of water pressure loss that rendered Los Angeles’ municipal utility’s fire hydrants unusable during the Palisades Fire this week.
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 wrote in a letter to Los Angeles Department of Water and Power CEO Janisse Quiñones and Mark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works. “We need answers to how that happened.”
The letter requests LADWP and Los Angeles County officials to “swiftly” conduct a report detailing any causes of lost water pressure and unavailable water supplies, along with an examination of local preparedness efforts and response procedures.
Reports that fire hydrants were running dry as crews attempted to save homes and businesses in Pacific Palisades quickly grabbed national headlines Tuesday and Wednesday, spurring widespread criticism of Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass from across the political spectrum, including President-elect Donald Trump and real estate mogul Rick Caruso.
LADWP in a Wednesday press conference refuted claims that water tanks serving the area weren’t filled to capacity. The three tanks in the area had been filled to capacity with around 1 million gallons of water each, department officials said, but those supplies were tapped out by early Wednesday morning.
High winds of up to 80 miles per hour grounded aircraft used to fight wildfires, putting the bulk of the pressure on the fire hydrant system.
“We saw four times the demands of water that we’ve ever seen in the system,” Quiñones said. “We opened every valve available to push as much water into the Palisades area. This fire was different and unprecedented because they didn’t have air resources to fight it.”
The Pacific Palisades fire, and a separate blaze in Altadena, have killed at least 10 people and burned more than 9,000 structures.
Newsom’s letter said the state will offer full technical support to local agencies as they detail their actions taken through the disaster. It does not offer a specific timeline for when reviews of the incident will be released.