‘Completely Dry’: How Los Angeles Firefighters Ran Out of Water

As wildfires roar into residential neighborhoods, firefighters in California and elsewhere are finding that water systems can’t keep up with the demand.

Capt. Kevin Easton and his firefighting team had already spent hours battling an out-of-control fire sweeping through Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades area, leaving gutted homes in its wake. Then, around midnight, their water lines started to sputter. Before long, the hydrants had run dry.

“Completely dry — couldn’t get any water out of it,” said Captain Easton, who was part of a small, roaming patrol of firefighters who were trying to protect the community’s Palisades Highlands neighborhood. Even on Wednesday afternoon — hours after the hydrants had gone dry — there was still no water. Houses in the Highlands burned, becoming part of the more than 5,000 structures destroyed by the Palisades fire so far.

Officials now say the storage tanks that hold water for high-elevation areas like the Highlands, and the pumping systems that feed them, could not keep pace with the demand as the fire raced from one neighborhood to another. That was in part because those who designed the system did not account for the stunning speeds at which multiple fires would race through the Los Angeles area this week.

“We are looking at a situation that is just completely not part of any domestic water system design,” said Marty Adams, a former general manager and chief engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which is responsible for delivering water to nearly four million residents of Los Angeles.

Municipal water systems are designed for firefighters to tap into multiple hydrants at once, allowing them to maintain a steady flow of water for crews who may be trying to protect a large structure or a handful of homes. But these systems can buckle when wildfires, such as those fueled by the dry brush that surrounds Los Angeles’s hillside communities, rage through entire neighborhoods.