L.A. Fires: Why Did the Fire Hydrants Run Dry? What We Know | WSJ

When fire hydrants ran dry during the Pacific Palisades fire, it sparked a wave of anger and even misinformation. Here’s how L.A.’s water system works and what we know about why the hydrants ran out.

Chapters:
0:00 Misinformation around the fire
0:39 How L.A.'s water system works
2:34 Claims about L.A. hydrants
4:06 What could L.A. have done better?

#Wildfire #LosAngeles #WSJ

[Ocker]

One problem with getting accurate information out to people is that the lady at 3:33 gives her answer in a dense, bureaucratic way, rather than just saying "the problem isn't the fish, the problem is that this fire is bigger than any anything that anyone planned or built for". People speaking for the Government need to know how to speak plainly to get their point across to voters, not just other experts.

[plisskin]

Now do a story about how & why they cut the Firefighter budget…I’ll wait.

[TheSnerggly]

Remember California locals, we all voted for new reservoirs, and not a single one was built in the past 10 years since that Proposition got passed.

[micco]

10 years ago taxpayers paid billions for more fire reservoirs. Got zero.

WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?

[bobjohnson]

Hard to believe in a state with yearly wild fires that they don't consider wildfire response in the water system.

[michaelizzy]

As a firefighter and a water operator i understand the problems here. It makes sense, they were completely overwhelmed and residential/ commercial fire suppression is completely different from wild fire management. But knowing the possibility exists for massive wild fires to jump all the way to the ocean, how could they not be prepared for this. Cali has wet barrel hydrants which are used for warm weather climate, having water constant. But in the event of loss of pressure the obvious solution would be to use sea water. Endless water. But that didnt happen. There is truly an incomprehensible aspect as how this got so out of control. My thoughts and prayers are with the citizens of these cities and hopefully our government steps up and helps the ones who truly need it. May god help california and

[caseclosed]

All I hear is local officials trying to cover their own rear ends…

[camps]

Janisse Quinones is the CEO of the LADWP. She is in charge of the reservoirs and hydrants in the city of LA. She was reccomended by Mayor Karen Bass. She gets paid $750, 000 a year, double what her predecessor got paid. She failed at her job.

[theblackchefjustice]

Im not the smartest guy, right, but if LA had water, how did they run out? On here, WSJ themselves said, "There wasn't enough pressure to push enough water into the palisades" also that chart they showed at 1:57 doesnt show Santa Ynez Reservoir, which is the reservoir for the pacific palisades... they showed almost every reservoir but not the ones that matter...

[ChillyJackFrost]

How about we stop permitting the constant rebuilding of burned out residential areas in obviously high fire&wind risk areas? If the homeowner had to pay for it out of their own pocke I bet we wouldnt have tens of thousands of flammable homes jammed together into dry, windy regions where fires have historically plagued past residents.

[deanhoward]

Poor forestry & infrastructure management, is a contributing factor to these fires!

[svbion]

Simple answer, the system wasn't designed with wildfires in mind. The humans who created and engineered the system were not accounting for natural disasters.

[AlanSmith]

Not trying to pin the blame on anyone, but you'd think that when you have fires EVERY YEAR, you'd actually do something to prepare for it?

[haystax]

Wildland and urban fire fighting tactics are not the same! Urban firefighting tactics are designed to protect a small number of structures. Cal Fire tries to pump water uphill in many wildland scenarios with varying levels of success. Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fires of this type have to focus on fuels management for success. Winds of this type make conventional tactics impossible to use, there is no way to establish control using pumpers and hydrants. Wildland firefighter use bulldozers to build fire breaks - removing fuel ahead of the fire. Hard to convince anyone to let fire crews bulldoze standing houses in order to create a firebreak in a neighborhood

[real-patriot-bj]

100 miles per hour HOT winds and plenty of underbrush growth from last rainfall for fuel, when dried for months of drought that followed. None of fire hydrants would cut it. What they truly need is active fire management by removing portions of that fuel that help spread the fire. .

[nickdimariamusic]

It blows my mind that people continue to shill for the California govt. At what point do you look at the high taxes, yet high homelessness, high crime, high prices, gridlocked bureaucracy and now inability to manage a common natural disaster and say enough is enough. You can make all of the excuses you want until you are the one whose house is literally burning down. It is the greatest state yet so terribly managed. Spoken as a former Cali resident.

[romulopontual]

The Palisades water reservoir is closed for maintenance since 2009. What kind of maintenance takes 16 years!?
Who stopped the cutting fire breaks and why did they do it? Was it to help mice migrate or to divert fund to a parade?
What more has to happen for the voters to realize that they put incompetents in charge of securing their lives?

[TheAnimal]

The wall st journal is running cover for politicians instead of reporting the facts. This kind of narrative based journalism and the abandonment of truth is why I cancelled my subscription 🤷‍♂️

[gabetalks]

California does not have a water security problem. They have a water management problem. LA used to have so much water, that they once had constant flooding. Then, they covered the LA River in concrete and now it's mostly dead. They had the 9th largest freshwater lake on Earth, and they drained it for agriculture. Now they're draining the rest of their state's rivers, reservoirs, and aquifers so that they can feed more crops, so now, they're pulling most of their water from the Colorado River until that's drained next too. California has had more water than most entire countries could ever dream of, but they waste it like its an infinite resource. This is why we need to transition away from monoculture to permaculture. We need to use our water much more conservatively so that we always plenty in times of crisis. If we don't start doing that now, then we won't have any water left for anything, let alone fighting wildfires.

[winlock]

How do you spell BS. LA has had years to fix this and almost nothing has been done. I know let's form a committee to study what went wrong. I'm sure the burned out residents will understand.