Water engineering expert weighs in on lack of water for Palisades and Eaton firefight

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — As the California wildfires rage on, many continue to wonder how they grew so quickly, damaging at least 10,000 structures.

Experts are weighing in on a major issue in Los Angeles that has prevented firefighters from battling the blaze: lack of water.

In some areas, firefighters could only watch as homes went up in flames because of low water pressure and, in some cases – dry hydrants.

A water engineering expert at ASU says the lack of water is a complex issue, but so far, this is one large factor: an empty reservoir.

“They did have a reservoir that was being repaired, so there wasn’t water in it,” said Upamnu Lall, a professor of the School Complex Adaptive Systems at ASU.

Upmanu Lall is the Director of the Water Institute at ASU.

He says a big reason the wildfires in Los Angeles have been so hard to tackle is because the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which holds 117 million gallons of water, has been offline for nearly a year.

“The typical thing that you’ve probably seen in Arizona as well, is there are water tanks sitting on top of a mountain,” said Lall.

Lall says the reservoir closure means firefighters primarily relied on water tanks to tame the flames of a large wildfire. Which, he says, is not their intended purpose.

“That design is based on a daily cycle of water use and it is based on what you might expect if there are a few houses that catch fire. So if you suddenly have a hundred houses catching fire and you were designing for a max of the largest building and a couple houses, you will run out of that water very quickly,” said Lall.

That’s why he believes the water pressure has been so low, and hydrants have even run dry in higher elevations.

“Parts of Arizona have systems that are about the same age as the ones in California. So those things are similar, in terms of scarcity of water and water pressures are similar. The solutions have been similar. We get Colorado River water transferred in, they get Northern California water transferred in,” Lall said.

Lall says there are similarities regarding water supply when comparing the Valley and Los Angeles.

So, could the water issues that happened to the Palisades fire happen here?

Tempe officials are reassuring the public that they are prepared.

The city says it always keeps millions of gallons of water in reserve solely for firefighting purposes. They also say city staff constantly monitor water pressure.

California governor Gavin Newsom has directed an independent investigation into why the reservoir was offline and how that impacted the hydrants. He said the low water pressure and empty reservoir were deeply troubling, and the city needs answers about how that happened.

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