Why fire hydrants ran dry as wildfires tore through Los Angeles

By Free Republic | Created at 2025-01-10 11:27:31 | Updated at 2025-01-10 15:03:27 4 hours ago
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Why fire hydrants ran dry as wildfires tore through Los Angeles
Washington Post via MSN ^ | Jan 10, 2025 | Brianna Sacks, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Brianna Tucker, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux

Posted on 01/10/2025 2:55:18 AM PST by where's_the_Outrage?

ALTADENA, Calif. — Firefighter Ryan Babroff hurried to a nearby hydrant, hoping to connect his hose and douse the massive flames consuming homes in this mountain community northeast of Los Angeles.

But when he pried it open, no water came out. The hydrant was empty.

The longtime Cal Fire volunteer said he encountered at least four dry hydrants as he tried to battle the Eaton Fire in Altadena on Wednesday. Fellow firefighters had to drive to neighboring Pasadena to fill their trucks.

“How do you fight a fire with no water?” Babroff said.

As wildfires tore through greater Los Angeles this week, one of the most exasperating obstacles firefighters have come up against are hydrants with no water. In Pacific Palisades, hydrants failed after three tanks each holding a million gallons of water went dry within a span of 12 hours, officials said. Across the city in Altadena, residents said they futilely tried to extinguish flames with water from pools and garden hoses.

The reports of dry hydrants sparked outrage and finger-pointing. President-elect Donald Trump accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of depriving the region of much-needed water and demanded he “immediately go to Northern California and open up the water main, and let the water flow into his dry, starving, burning State.”

Even celebrities chimed in, with former “Dancing With the Stars” performer Valentin Chmerkovskiy writing on social media: “5th largest economy on the planet. Firefighters didn’t have enough water pressure to do their jobs?! Are you joking me?!”

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: firehydrants; lafires; water; wildfires

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Businesses and homes burned along the Pacific Coast Highway in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Thursday.

Why didn't they bring in irrigation pumps and use ocean water? Probably there is a prohibition on using salt water to fight fires.


To: where's_the_Outrage?

California’s legislature is going into special session, not to deal with the states problems, but to find ways to block President Trump from deporting illegals!


2 posted on 01/10/2025 2:58:52 AM PST by CIB-173RDABN (My opinions are the result of 80 years of life, you may not like them but who cares.)


To: where's_the_Outrage?

Experts in urban water supply said the hydrants ran dry because of a host of factors, including spiking demand that made it difficult to quickly refill them. Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas of Los Angeles County rely on a patchwork of municipal systems that are designed to battle house fires, not massive wildfires consuming blocks at a time.

Fair enough... Then why not bring in waterbombers? Waterbombers are used to fight massive fires... Didn't see any coming to the rescue though.

3 posted on 01/10/2025 3:00:32 AM PST by jerod (Nazis were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)


To: CIB-173RDABN

On CBS Evening News, braindead lesbo LA fire Chief Kristin Crowley stated: the cuts to the fire department’s budget resulted in the department taking from “nonessential duties and responsibilities” but due to the cuts, “we were limited to a certain factor,” in their ability to respond to large-scale events, but with the wind with the recent fires being the way it was, “I honestly don’t think a thousand engines at that very moment could have tapped this fire down.”


4 posted on 01/10/2025 3:00:47 AM PST by Liz ((This then is how we should pray: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. ))


To: where's_the_Outrage?

“How do you fight a fire with no water?”

Diversity, inclusion, and equity.



To: where's_the_Outrage?

Why didn’t they fill the reservoir?

Maintain their hydrants?

This has happened before.

But it appears Google is censoring searches on this subject.

I’ll be back with a cite...


6 posted on 01/10/2025 3:02:37 AM PST by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)


To: Liz

I’d like to know why these executive positions get payed overtime? Most of these positions are salaried.


7 posted on 01/10/2025 3:03:28 AM PST by caver ( )


To: mewzilla

8 posted on 01/10/2025 3:04:21 AM PST by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)


To: All

LA’s DEI $750k-a-year latino water boss struggles to explain why
fire hydrants ran dry in bumbling video about inferno response
Daily Mail UK ^ | January 9, 2025 | Emma Richter
Posted on 1/9/2025, 10:18:11 PM by Morgana

Los Angeles’ water boss who makes $750,000 a year couldn’t quite explain why fire hydrants have run dry during the disastrous wildfires in a bumbling video. During a press conference Wednesday, Janisse Quiñones, the newly appointed chief executive officer and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said all water storage tanks in the Pacific Palisades area ‘went dry’ as flames continue to rage on.

At least seven people have been killed and almost 180,000 forced to leave their homes amid the most destructive blaze in the county’s history.

Quiñones, who previously worked for PG&E prior to being appointed in May, said the third water tank ran out at about 3am local time Wednesday, after the first tank ran out around 4.45pm, and the second at approximately 8.30pm - each at about 1,000,000 gallons each.

‘Those tanks help with the pressure on the fire hydrants in the hills of Palisades, and because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used before it can get to the tanks - we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough,’ she explained.

‘So the consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in our trunk line,’ she continued, adding that there is water in the truck line, but it ‘cannot get up the hill because we cannot fill the tanks fast enough.’

After someone asked her for the number of hydrants that cannot get water because of these issues, Quiñones started to stumble on her words. ‘We, um, we were trying to keep water at all altitudes on the Palisades, and I think about three in the morning, that’s when - uh - the hydrants went dry above the Brentwood area.’ (Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


9 posted on 01/10/2025 3:04:29 AM PST by Liz ((This then is how we should pray: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. ))


To: caver

Stealing, theft or robbery?


10 posted on 01/10/2025 3:05:24 AM PST by Liz ((This then is how we should pray: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. ))


To: where's_the_Outrage?

The one good thing coming out of this... If you want some cheap land deals, plenty are likely on the horizon in LA LA Land.


11 posted on 01/10/2025 3:06:35 AM PST by jerod (Nazis were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)


To: sauropod

12 posted on 01/10/2025 3:07:51 AM PST by sauropod ("You didn't take a country. You only won a football game!" - Dan Dakich Ne supra crepidam)


To: All

Billionaires Control A Critical California Water Bank
https://www.forbes.com/ ^ | Oct 11, 2021 | Chloe Sorvino
Posted on 1/10/2025, 6:03:53 AM by Jonty30

“Wonderful,” the closely held company owned by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, can buy up huge amounts of water whenever it needs more. Most of the Resnicks’ water comes from long-term contracts and other water from land rights they have from the farms they own. Around 9% of the total water used by Wonderful is bought out on the open water market. While that’s not a huge amount of the water it uses, the company can outspend pretty much every other farmer in the region, which can influence water prices.

“Like all farmers, we occasionally need to purchase water for our crops,” a spokesperson for the Wonderful Co. said. “However, we prioritize water rights when purchasing farmland, thus most of our supply is not purchased on the water market. Based on this, we do not believe we have enough purchasing power to impact water prices.”

The water that the Resnicks use gets stored underground initially before the water is delivered to the roots of the Resnicks’ pistachios, almonds and pomegranate orchards. Specifically, it is stored in the Kern Water Bank, the most valuable water resource in a region critical to America’s fresh food supply. The water bank, which is a public-private partnership in which the Resnicks own a 57% stake, is a 32-square-mile recharge basin—which looks like floodlands from the street that essentially stores up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water (or 500 billion gallons) underground.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


13 posted on 01/10/2025 3:11:18 AM PST by Liz ((This then is how we should pray: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. ))


To: where's_the_Outrage?


14 posted on 01/10/2025 3:11:59 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)


To: Telepathic Intruder

In other words, bodies stacked up like cordwood.


15 posted on 01/10/2025 3:12:58 AM PST by Jonty30 (Liberals are a fulfillment of II Tim3:5. We are instructed to have nothing to do with those people. )


To: mewzilla

Why didn’t they fill the reservoir?

Gavin on video touted his crowning achievement by stating he He took down 4. He squandered millions of tax dollars collected for the construction of more. MSN now blames the millionaire farmers up north for making deals to buy water for thier crops



To: jerod

It would certainly fit in my thesis that California is purposefully not well run so that the billionaires can buy up the land for themselves.

After California is owned, they can just undo all the bad legislation in order to make it go green again.


17 posted on 01/10/2025 3:16:50 AM PST by Jonty30 (Liberals are a fulfillment of II Tim3:5. We are instructed to have nothing to do with those people. )


To: where's_the_Outrage?

Hey WaPo, those are your peeps you’re speaking evil of. Nobody likes a hypocrite.


18 posted on 01/10/2025 3:17:20 AM PST by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)


To: where's_the_Outrage?

Simple: California fails to store water in reservoirs that are surface and sub-surface.


19 posted on 01/10/2025 3:24:51 AM PST by linMcHlp

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