Gov Gavin Newsom's infuriating reaction after being asked why fire hydrants ran out of water during LA wildfires

California governor Gavin Newsom passed the buck after he was asked why fire hydrants ran out of water in Pacific Palisades as wildfires devastated the LA area. 

'Local folks are going to [have to] figure that out,' the Democrat told CNN's Anderson Cooper as he put his hands up when questioned about the lack of water to fight the fires.

'I mean, when you have a system where it's not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large-scale fires ... those hydrants are typically for two or three fires, maybe one fire, not something of this scale...

'But, again, that's going to be determined by the local [authorities].'

Newsom was previously slammed after he shared a video as he surveilled the wildfires that are ravaging through the Los Angeles area.

Newsom was on the ground in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday as the inferno spread throughout southern California, killing at least five and leaving many significantly injured, per officials.

But his critics took the image as a photo-op as they slammed Newsom for the fires.

Many also targeted Newsom, accusing him of not implementing the necessary resources to battle wildfires.

The water system used to fight the Palisades fire buckled under the demands of what turned out to be the most destructive fire in city history, with some hydrants running dry as they were overstressed without assistance from firefighting aircraft for hours early Wednesday. 

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was pumping from aqueducts and groundwater into the system, but demand was so high that it wasn’t enough to refill three 1-million gallon tanks in hilly Pacific Palisades that help pressurize hydrants for the neighborhood. Many went dry as at least 1,000 buildings were engulfed in flames.

The dry hydrants prompted a swirl of criticism on social media, including from President-elect Donald Trump.

'Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.'

Trump added: 'He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!'

But state and local officials and experts forcefully hit back, saying critics were connecting unrelated issues and spreading false information during a crisis. State water distribution choices were not behind the hydrant problems, they said, nor was a lack of overall supply in the region. 

Janisse Quiñones, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said later at a news conference that 3 million gallons of water were available when the Palisades fire started but the demand was four times greater than 'we’ve ever seen in the system.' 

Hydrants are designed for fighting fires at one or two houses at a time, not hundreds, Quiñones said, and refilling the tanks also requires asking fire departments to pause firefighting efforts. Mayor Karen Bass said 20 percent of hydrants went dry. 

Rick Caruso, a real estate developer and former Los Angeles Department of Water and Power commissioner who lost to Bass in the last mayoral race, said officials needed to answer for the system’s failures.

'You got thousands of homes destroyed, families destroyed, businesses destroyed,' he said. 'I think you can figure out a way to get more water in the hydrants. I don’t think there’s room for excuses here.'

The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have spotlighted Newsom's record on forest management, which critics say have turned parts of the city into an apocalyptic hellscape.

As firefighters tackled blazes across the city, and as Newsom declared a state of emergency across the Pacific Palisades area, the Democratic governor was battling revived scrutiny over his record on land management.

The governor, widely seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028, has faced repeated criticism for his land management policies, with seasonal blazes ravaging the Golden State throughout his time in office. 

Investigations by California-based media outlets have repeatedly slammed Newsom for failing to deliver on his promises upon taking office in 2019 of revamping the state's wildfire strategy.     

He's been accused of overstating his accomplishments and pulling much-needed funding from fire safety and land management even as the amount of burnable fuel was piling up to dangerous levels.

Newsom's office did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.

An investigation from CapRadio and NPR's California Newsroom found Newsom had failed to deliver on the promise of the executive order signed on his first day in office in January 2019, aimed at revamping the state's wildfire strategy.

Those outlets in 2021 accused him of misrepresenting his accomplishments and even pulling much-needed funds out of wildfire prevention. 

They found Newsom overstated, by an astounding 690 percent, the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns in the areas he had said needed to be prioritized.

Newsom had claimed that 35 'priority projects' carried out as a result of his 2019 executive order resulted in fire prevention work across 90,000 acres of land.

But the state's own data showed the actual number was just 11,399 — some seven times less.

The amount of burnable fuel that Cal Fire was removing from the land increased in Newsom's first year — but then dropped by half in 2020, the investigation found.

At the same time, he slashed some $150 million from Cal Fire's wildfire prevention budget.

Californians who survived blazes told the outlets how they felt betrayed by Newsom and other officials, saying he was more interested in photo-ops than saving homes and businesses from blazes.

'It's a deception,' said Mitch Mackenzie, who lost his home in the 2017 Tubbs Fire and who's Santa Rosa winery was hurt by reduced harvests.

Across the state, residents have complained that fire safety features, such as emergency access roads that could help them escape from a blaze, that were promised had not been completed.

Breanna Morello, a right-wing internet personality, on Wednesday posted a photo of Newsom looking on at burning homes, saying he was 'admiring all his hard work after intentionally neglecting forest management.'

Newsom, she added, was too focused on the 'globalist climate change agenda.'

Others shared old tweets from Donald Trump, who as president in 2019 slammed Newsom for a 'terrible job of forest management' and failing to clean wooded areas of brush that can lead to blazes.

'I told him from the first day we met that he must 'clean' his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him,' Trump posted.

'Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers,' he added, in reference to forest management policies that were being overlooked.

The claims showcase a split between some conservatives, who see wildfires as a land management issue, and others, who attribute the blazes to climate change and seek tighter curbs on emissions of planet-heating gases. 

Blame for the LA wildfires was also hurled at the city's embattled mayor Karen Bass, who cut the LA Fire Department's budget by a staggering $17.6 million in this financial year.

She'd initially wanted to cut the fire department by even more — a staggering $23 million.

Bass also faced a backlash for being off duty at a time of crisis — she was reportedly away in Africa for the Ghanian president's inauguration as blazes turned parts of her city into a terrifying hellscape.

The criticism roiled California's Democratic leaders as thousands of firefighters battled at least three separate blazes in LA's metropolitan area, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena.

LAFD put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help, and weather conditions were too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight.

Images of the devastation that emerged overnight showed luxurious homes that had collapsed in a whirlwind of flaming embers.

Flames that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot.

Residents — one as old as 102 — waited in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses, and construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city's Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity homes.

Among those affected were such Hollywood stars as Mark Hamill, Mandy Moore and James Woods.

In the race to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

'This is a highly dangerous windstorm that's creating extreme fire risk – and we're not out of the woods,' Newsom said in a statement.

'We're already seeing the destructive impacts with this fire in Pacific Palisades that grew rapidly in a matter of minutes.'