Mammoth wildfires put unprecedented demands on local water agencies in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday and Wednesday, dwarfing available resources needed to battle the flames.
Janisse Quiñones, CEO of LADWP, said Wednesday that the department saw four times the normal demand for water that “pushed the system to the extreme,” which in turn seriously lowered the water pressure as the firestorm spread across Pacific Palisades.
She said at a press conference that her department had four times the normal demand for water for 15 hours straight — causing DWP to run out of water in three huge water tanks used on the Palisades Fire, with the third tank emptied of its water at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Quiñones urged DWP customers to conserve water not only in the Palisades but in the entire system “because the fire department needs the water to fight fires and we’re fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging.”
She explained that the first water tank in Pacific Palisades that was tapped by firefighters held about 1 million gallons of water but it ran out of water at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, and the second tank of 1 million gallons of water ran out of water at about 8:30 p.m., followed by the third tank early Wednesday.
“Those tanks help with the pressure on the fire hydrants in the hills of Palisades,” Quiñones explained, and “because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used before it (went) to the tanks, we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough. So the consumption of water was faster than we (could) provide water in our trunk line.”
Quiñones said there is water in the DWP’s trunk line, but “it cannot get up the hill because we cannot fill the tanks fast enough.”
Her solution for now is to ask customers “across the entire system to conserve water so the Fire Department can use the urban water system to fight this fire.”
“What are we doing now?” she said. “We’re sending (crews and) about 20 water tanks … full of water to support the Fire Department.”
And the lack of water was not the only problem for DWP. In a prepared statement last night DWP said 1.5 million electric customers were without power.
“The communities with the most affected customers are Echo Park, Harbor Gateway, Glassell Park, Sawtelle, Harbor City, Mid-Wilshire, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Valley Village, Panorama City and North Hollywood,” DWP said.
Municipal water systems are not designed to fight wildfires, Mark Pestrella, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works told Associated Press. “That’s why air support is so critical to the firefight. And unfortunately, wind and air visibility have prevented that support,” Pestrella said.
County and city reservoirs are ready to be used to fight fires from the air once it becomes safe to fly, he said. Officials are urging residents across the region to conserve water so there’s enough for firefighters to use.
“We’re fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging,” Quiñones said.
By midday Tuesday, DWP had restored power to 24,400 customers. Customers are encouraged to sign up to receive outage alerts via text or email in English or Spanish, report a power outage, or check the status of any power outage in LADWP‘s service area by going online at www.LADWP.com/Outages.