The truth about why fire hydrants lost pressure and ran dry during the Los Angeles fires

Martin Adams, former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, blows up some right-wing myths about the water supply in Pacific Palisades, and talks with Alex Wagner about the realities of municipal water systems and ideas for adapting a system built for occasional residential fires to deal with a large scale, community-wide fire.

Follow MSNBC Show Blogs

MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth analysis of politics headlines, as well as commentary and informed perspectives. Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, The Beat with Ari Melber, Deadline: White House, The ReidOut, All In, Last Word, 11th Hour, and Alex Wagner who brings her breadth of reporting experience to MSNBC primetime. Watch “Alex Wagner Tonight” Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern.

Connect with MSNBC Online

#LosAngeles #wildfires #firefighters

[darthpiette]

The biggest problem in all of this is journalists not calling politicians on their bull crap. You dont ask followup questions, you just let them say whatever they want. Anything factual said after the fact is pointless because the damage has already been done.

[Alice_Walker]

As an Australian who has grown up with fire preparation messaging, one of the first things we learn is that in a bushfire emergency you can't rely on the city water supply because infrastructure is almost certainly going to be affected. Trucks designed to fight bushfires have their own tankers. People whose fire plans are to stay and defend their homes usually have generators and their own water sources (or understand they risk there not being water to fight with). It doesn't seem unusual at all to me that in a fire of this magnitude that urban water mains couldn't keep up with demand.

[izzyxblades]

Facts: houses that were continually dousted with water still burned down. Please refer to The Bunny Museum, which days ago existed in Pasadena. The owners of the museum continually soaked the museum with water all night, we had water pressure. Because of his efforts, his building was the last to go down while everyone around it caught fire, but because of the wind and how fire works. These were winds up to 80-100 miles per hour. It doesn't matter how wet your house is, it isnt enough.
People who dont live here cant comprehend how bad the wind whipped up the fire, it basically negates water being doust on structures. The wind carries the moisture away and brings embers. Do you guys understand? The wind made this completely impossible. It was a hurricane made of fire.

[protow]

filling the hydrants? HOW do they think the water system works?

[SC-wbbq]

It's the reason why the advice, in Australia, is if you plan to stay and defend your home from fire you must have a pump and your own dedicated water source to pump from. Do not rely on mains water, it's unlikely there will be enough pressure to do anything if you actually need to defend your property

[stephengeorge]

Not worth arguing and blaming. No amount of water would stop that fire. With those winds the ember shower would be igniting fires in hundreds of places at the same time. If no wind it might have been different. Aerial attack is very effective.

[mont]

Some of us know this already, but going to share it anyway because lies have already gone around the country while the truth was still getting its boots on.

[lisafoy]

Hundreds of Mexicans firefighters have arrived in southern California to help combat the wildfire's . Thank you, Mexico, millions of us love and appreciate your country 🇺🇲💖🇸🇳

[MrRover]

I'm an Australia, in Victoria, which has some of the most intense bush fires in the world due to eucalyptus trees. Key note is that we do controlled burns all year round, we create fire roads and fire breaks in high risk area. Genuine question, has this been done in CA?

[debracurry]

😢too many hoses drawing from one hydrant/source at the same time is going to lower water pressure. Thats a simple physics issue. Same thing would happen at your house if you used hoses hooked up to every wayer outlet/sink etc to fill your new pool. Only so much can come in through main pipes at any given time. They had tankers filling up from the ocean (a basically bottomless resource) to fight the fires. It wasnt mismanagement. Just the unfortunate need for too much demand vs a limited amount that can flow through pipes at any given time. Might as well blame NCarolina for not having a better plan to accommodate all the rainfall they got. You can only plan for what you think the worse case might be. Not for catastrophic events. NC is slowly recovering, so will California. Not spreading lies because that meets you political points would help a lot. News people used to be able to fact check and present balanced information. They used to say "we are waiting on all the facts" before they reported. Now its all about getting words out there first to draw in the nost clicks even if it is lies. No change will happen unless they lose viewers because of it. Sadly there will always be those who WANT the lies to be true because it fits the story they make up in their heads.

[stevenstanley]

With the fierce 90-100 mph winds no amount of water would have made any difference.

[barbaraannscarlet]

The water system as it currently operates, could NEVER supply the pressure necessary to fight ALL THOSE FIRES AT ONCE. The pump stations are not BIG enough or MANY enough to fight ALL THESE FIRES with 90 mile an hour winds. 90 mile an hour winds DO NOT allow for airplanes and helicopters to fly and help put these fires out.

[KC-khdf]

Our infrastructure is outdated and has been for decades. That’s the real issue.

[torranceblackburn]

Pardon me for comparing, but I am water operator for a small mobile home community and absolutely when everybody is using water we have a low pressure.
He mentioned dry pumps because you’re pumping the water from the ground and you can only pump so much from the ground before there is no more to pump.
We all need to understand that the earth will only give us so much water, oil, natural gas, gold. We can’t have an endless supply of water and that is why they had low pressure. They can get bigger pumps, but they will still run dry because the earth does not have enough water to provide and even if we drilled deeper, it still wouldn’t provide enough water for such a fire. I hope everybody can understand that.

[dmathmothtutinean]

bill that never existed…..but why tell lies!!! 3:12

[firemen]

Retired firefighter here when that many fire engines pump from the system it will lose pressure or even go dry

[christeitzel]

Fire hydrants are designed to fight house fires not bushfires

[NashBrooklyn]

Instead of using water directly, which does not effectively deprive fires of oxygen, foaming cannons should be deployed on hillsides. These cannons release foam that suffocates fires approximately 10 times faster, leaving no embers untouched. The foam also spreads more efficiently, covering more homes and extinguishing active fires without causing much damage. Unlike water, foam strikes houses and soil with less force, preserving structures and surroundings while smothering heat sources.

Additionally, flame-retardant grenades could be utilized. These grenades, when tossed into burning shrubs, extinguish fires instantly with a burst of retardant. They could even be distributed to residents along evacuation routes to help contain fires.

One example of a fire prevention strategy comes from a homeowner who protected his property for four hours using a gas generator and water pump. Drawing water from his pool, he sprayed his house continuously, creating a "rain" effect that kept the flames at bay. He learned this technique during a trip to Japan, where Tokyo employs permanently installed water cannons at intersections. These cannons can be remotely activated during emergencies, providing a robust and affordable fire prevention system.

Adopting such technologies could better protect homes, reduce firefighting costs, lower insurance expenses, and make rebuilding more economical in the long run.

[JustinO-Pinion]

The water holding reservoir for Pacific Palasades was bone dry and closed for repairs, fire dept. showed up at starting locations and found no water in hydrants! The Newsome fought against letting additional water to flow from up north and down to southern Ca. to protect the endangered Smelt 3" fish because enviroment activists fought against that from happening. The main reason was to save the fish because they are essential to be where they are as food for the migrating birds.

[FrankLucas]

Then why did the LA fire chief come out today and say Newsome & Bass failed her? 🤔