The LA fires and the lack of water to fight them
There’s no shortage of criticism of the leadership of Los Angeles and the state of California in the wake of the Los Angeles fires. One of the biggest topics is the fact that, in Pacific Palisades, the hydrants went dry.
But the situation is more complicated than most people know. For example:
LADWP’s explanation for the shortage comes down to three nearby water tanks, each with a storage capacity of about a million gallons. These tanks help maintain enough pressure for water to travel uphill through pipes to homes and fire hydrants — but the pressure had decreased due to heavy water use, and officials knew the tanks couldn’t keep up the drain forever.
“We pushed the system to the extreme,” LADWP CEO Janisse Quiñones said in a news conference. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”
According to LADWP, the tanks’ water supply needed to be replenished in order to provide enough pressure for the water to travel to fire hydrants uphill. But officials said as firefighters drew more and more water from the trunk line, or main supply, they used water that would have refilled the tanks, eventually depleting them.
That decreased the water pressure, which is needed for the water to travel uphill. …
… [F]ire hydrants have also run dry in the case of other wildfires that spread to urban areas, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire, 2024’s Mountain Fire and 2023’s Maui wildfires.
In these cases, firefighters have to rely on other water sources. For the Palisades Fire, LADWP brought in 19 water trucks, each with capacities of 4,000 gallons.
In LA and other parts of California, large fires are often fought with the addition of firefighting helicopters, but in the present fire the winds have been too high and the visibility too poor to use them.
Then there’s the topic of why California doesn’t have more reservoirs. If you read this article from 2023, you’ll learn a lot on that score. An excerpt:
Last century, California built dozens of large dams, creating the elaborate reservoir system that supplies the bulk of the state’s drinking and irrigation water. Now state officials and supporters are ready to build the next one.
The Sites Reservoir — planned in a remote corner of the western Sacramento Valley for at least 40 years — has been gaining steam and support since 2014, when voters approved Prop. 1, a water bond that authorized $2.7 billion for new storage projects.
Still, Sites Reservoir remains almost a decade away: Acquisition of water rights, permitting and environmental review are still in the works. Kickoff of construction, which includes two large dams, had been scheduled for 2024, but likely will be delayed another year. Completion is expected in 2030 or 2031.
That’s quite a time frame. And the dam would only help the situation about 3%.
More:
Jerry Brown (not the former governor of the same name) of the Sites Project Authority, which represents local water districts pursuing the project, said it takes many years to develop and plan projects of this scale.
“My personal rule of thumb is that for every year of construction you spend about three years in the planning-permitting-engineering stage,” he said. Since Sites’ construction takes six years, the process would be expected to take 18 years.
California is a state with too many people for its water supply, some special geological and climate challenges which present the possibility of disasters, environmentalists eager to block most potential solutions, and one-party Democrat rule. It’s a situation rife with possibilities for incompetence and corruption.
“Sites Reservoir remains almost a decade away: Acquisition of water rights, permitting and environmental review are still in the works.”
Permitting (by government) and
environmental review (by government). Will take years and years.
Reminds me of “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.
CA Democrats reap what they sow.
I would not be surprised if the head of the Sites Project Authority were the same Jerry Brown who was governor. That guy’s been in politics almost as long as Biden, and the taste for power is hard to live with if it’s not satisfied.
Blame the loss of water on over usage to fight the fires. OK, but without the reservoirs as backup, there was no water. Putting blame to where it should go. Pols and Enviros.
The “elites” might rebuild, the middle class and lower will not be able to afford to. The cancellation of the insurance coverage is a devastating blow to rebuilding. New construction regs will make things a lot more expensive. Feel sorry for the “stars”, maybe a little, but the support people – the maids, cleaning staff, gardeners, etc are really hurting.
I might be misunderstanding something (here come my usual apologies for learning English as a second language).
Does the fact that
> California is a state with … one-party Democrat rule
spare California Democratic leaders the blame? Is _that_ your post’s message?
(I’d love to see how they aren’t to blame for the “environmentalists” having too much political power, either. There is no “Environmentalist Party” with a distinct popular support base, or any similar political force. There is a “Green Party” but it’s not in charge anywhere. California “environmentalists” are California Democrats period.)
P.S. To provide a summary, the situation is definitely _complicated_, but it’s not as _complex_ as you are perhaps trying to present it. No “perfect storm” of independent / unrelated factors lead to it. It is a self-inflicted wound, to the extent that the collective mood of a polity can be ascribed any “self”.
I’d leave estimating the exact ratio of malice, arrogance and ignorance involved to historians of future ages. Personally, I don’t think it matters. Either way they had it coming.
These are “firestorms”. You’re not fighting them with hoses or aircraft. You might as well try to stop a tornado or hurricane.
Add to my previous comment. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEkzbkyRIvj/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Does the fact that
> California is a state with … one-party Democrat rule
spare California Democratic leaders the blame? Is _that_ your post’s message?
No, I took the point to be an explanation, not a defense. Democrats always make messes and blame Republicans. Remember Katrina? Democrat Mayor, Democrat Governor, so they all blamed Bush.
ChatGPT – What is the history of fires in California?
Some quick snippets from long answer: ‘The 1910 “Big Blowup” wildfire in Northern California and other states, which burned 3 million acres and influenced nationwide fire policy … The Matilija Fire (1932), which burned over 220,000 acres in Ventura County … Starting in the 1980s, larger and more catastrophic fires became increasingly common … 2003 Cedar Fire: Burned over 273,000 acres in San Diego County, becoming one of the largest fires in state history at the time…
As I looked at the TV with pictures of multiple blocks of house ruins, I said to my wife, “It looks like Paradise.”
I haven’t heard PG&E being blamed yet, but give it time.
Someone much more clever than me posted the following elsewhere:
They didn’t fill the reservoirs
They cut $17M from the fire budget
They sent supplies to Ukraine
The fired firefighters for not getting the jab
They didn’t comply with brush clearing
They halted prescribed burns
They let storm water wash out to the sea
But yes, all this is caused by “climate change.”
California resident Kira Davis on Orange County compared to Los Angeles:
https://x.com/RealKiraDavis/status/1877425212893049263
How many of the fires are natural, and how many are arson. We known many of the Canadian wildfires of the past few years have been deliberate arson. There seems to be evidence at least some of the Hollywood fires now raging are arson as well. Liberals love cooking the books (pun intended) about climate change. I’m sure this is, at least in part, another instance of that.
You had one job, protect the safety and security of the citizens of your city, and you failed, miserably.
I have seen online rumors of arson, but it’s best to wait until investigations are complete.
This event the progressives may never recover from.
“California is a state with too many people for its water supply, some special geological and climate challenges which present the possibility of disasters, environmentalists eager to block most potential solutions, and one-party Democrat rule. It’s a situation rife with possibilities for incompetence and corruption.”
I would list the above factors in a different order of priority and with a bit stronger emphasis.
California is a State with environmentalists eager to block every potential solution and entrenched one-party Democrat rule. That combined with too many people for its purposely restricted water supply in a State with geological and climate challenges ensure the certainty of maximized disasters.
As for official incompetence, that becomes a certainty when basic aspects of external reality are rejected in favor of ideological ‘goals’. And to paraphrase, ‘Corruption ye shall always have with ye, while human nature remains unchanged.’
How this may not change voting. Most of the people affected will move out rather than face the rebuild. Most of the voters are unaffected.
About a decade ago I looked into putting a large, natural gas generator in a data center in L.A. Something I’d done in other locations in a matter of months. With the paperwork and application process in L.A. it was estimated to be at least 3 years until we knew we had approval, and then we were warned there could be any number of issues that could cause delays if we actually tried to put the thing in place and use it. In other words, even if we eventually got approval it was still a coin toss that we’d ever get to the stage where we had an operational generator.
So I gave up.
“For the want of a nail a kingdom was lost.”
I can’t not take this opportunity to link to a tragically under known Todd Rundgren song on the subject: https://youtu.be/gNY6-BqUieg?si=gtKBpRel6SVQqKiL
“Liberals love cooking the books (pun intended) about climate change.” – Alan Colbo
That’s been my observation. The media here in WA act like fires are the result of spontaneous combustion due to global warming. A few fires are started by lightning. But most are human caused – most accidental, but as you mentioned the global warmers have been active in setting fires. An activist was
caught in northern California in 2021.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-man-accused-arson-setting-spree-charged-starting-fire-dixie-n1276523
What Kira Davis says about the situation in Orange County is quite telling. Active mitigation and suppression won’t prevent every fire from becoming a disaster, but it sure can cut the losses by an appreciable amount.
While California does have “special geological and climate challenges” that cause water shortages, I think these challenges could be solved if there was the political will to solve them. California gets plenty of snow and rain, it just gets them at infrequent intervals. People have known about California’s lack of reservoir capacity for years and done next to nothing to address the problem. Of course it will take years to fix this problem but it could be done.
The point I attempted to make in a few of my comments yesterday is, we used to embrace and revere engineering and design, and openly discuss and weigh necessary trade offs.
You can have a city the size of Amsterdam that lies below sea level if you accept the engineering costs and continue to maintain the necessary safety elements for reasonable flood prevention. Amsterdamians (Amsterdamites?) do. New Orleanians, not so much.
20 million people can live in a desert, but you have to support and pay for the engineering to get adequate water to meet their needs. The Romans were doing this 2,000 years ago.
And there will still be natural disasters. I don’t know if this round of fires could have been prevented, but I do know our governments are often negligent in having the sort-of rational debate necessary to inform citizens of risks and trade-offs.
We all know the famous Milton Friedman statement: “You can have open borders, or you can have a welfare state, but you can’t have both.”
California needs a leader to inform the citizens they can have an ecosystem that supports 20 million humans living in southern California, or they can have an ecosystem of unspoiled nature, but they can’t have both.
Gregory Harper,
Hoover Dam was built in 5 years. What are the odds present day California could even have a sponsored bill in the state house within 5 years?
Hoover Dam was built in 5 years.. What are the odds present day California could even have a sponsored bill [for Hoover Dam} in the state house within 5 years?
Rufus T. Firefly:
Agreed. 🙂
This is why we need Elon Musk.
> How many of the fires are natural, and how many are arson.
Arson was definitely real in 2017 when I was still in NorCal.
The real question, however, isn’t how often the chain oxidation reaction otherwise known as combustion occurs in a certain environment.
The real question is how likely it is to spread uncontrollably, and that’s a macroscopic variable that’s far easier to observe and manage.
Right now in your room there are at least a few atoms of every single element of the periodic table, and pretty much every single isotope of it with a half-life longer than a few days. This includes, for example, a few atoms of uranium-235 or plutonium-239. You needn’t worry about them because they are so scarce that they are unlikely to cause a chain reaction, and if their concentration is anywhere near the dangerous threshold, you’d have noticed it much sooner either by their chemical toxicity or by the presence of a crew of men planting a nuclear device.
If the right feedback loops are in place, there is pretty much always plenty of time to react. If the feedback loops are dismantled, welcome to California.
Do you know what a critical mass is? The little excursion into Pu-239 and U-235 was filler. I’ve worked cleaning up a facility that had a Pu fire.
As with everything dose makes the poision.
Decent people don’t like to see the misfortune of others as comeuppance, so that flicker, that internal, pursed-lip ‘head nod’ that most every conservative is feeling right now, is a reminder that none of us is perfect. Curse the politicians, but: Pray for the victims of the fire.
It’s taking a long time for the ruling party in California to topple, but they will topple – just like the Soviet Union did, and for a lot of the same reasons. But by taking so long, the damage will be protracted and unforgettable. Look to Venezuela for guidance. The people that can leave, have mostly done so. Many of the people that are stuck, are unable to develop good options for themselves and therefore are terrific victims for the prospective long-term bleeding.
A lot of people have just lost the one thing that ties them to the state, their home equity. A lot of them were counting on it, and hoping the state would help to preserve it in good faith.
John Konrad, who published the maritime site gCaptain, observes that there is an OCEAN not too far away from the fires, and has thoughts as to how that fact should be used in firefighting:
https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/1877357420478894345
rife with possibilities for incompetence and corruption.
For ‘possibilities’ read ‘guarantees’, after years of one-party government.