The lack of water available to firefighters in Los Angeles was unavoidable, say experts and the media. Hydrants ran dry because the fires were just too big and the water system too old. Even if the large Santa Ynez reservoir had been filled with water, it likely would not have made a difference, they say.
But there are good reasons to believe that it would have made a very significant difference. The Santa Ynez Reservoir is just a few thousand feet away from where the massive Pacific Palisades fire started and is the second largest of L.A.’s “ten major active reservoirs.”
It’s too early to say precisely how much of a difference it would have made, and there’s no question that LA’s fire system is antiquated. It was never created to battle so many different fires at once. What’s more, the use of so many hydrants and the destruction of so many service lines to private residences resulted in a major loss of water and, thus, of water pressure.
But the Santa Ynez reservoir was uphill from the Pacific Palisades fire and the firefighters doing battle with it would likely have had first access to its 117 million gallons of water before other firefighters below them. And that would likely have kept water pressure high.
While the media downplayed the significance of the Santa Ynez, a senior water utility executive has come forward to tell Public that “117 million gallons is a huge amount of treated water storage to have available for firefighting. Massive. Maybe one of the biggest treated water storage reservoirs on the whole West Coast.”
The person I spoke with has worked as a senior professional in a California water utility for two decades. The person told Public that the LADWP should never have drained the Santa Ynez reservoir of water. Instead, it should have kept it full for emergency use, and only drained it to repair a torn cover after the fire risk was far lower and after LADWP had a contractor under contract and ready to perform necessary repairs.
