Crews battling multiple wildfires that raged across Los Angeles on Wednesday were up against a near-perfect storm: intense wind, low humidity and, most troubling for residents, inadequate supplies of water to contain the blazes.
Los Angeles authorities said their municipal water systems were working effectively but they were designed for an urban environment, not for tackling wildfires.
On Wednesday, at least three major blazes burned in LA County communities simultaneously, including a fire in the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood, an area west of downtown LA dotted with multimillion-dollar celebrity homes built along steep canyons.
Jay Lund, a professor in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Davis, said city water tanks are typically designed to be able to put out localized fires, not widespread fires like the ones blazing in Los Angeles.
"It's not a matter of there's not enough water in Southern California, it's a matter of there's not enough water in that particular area of Southern California just for those few hours that you need it to fight the fires," Lund added.
Across the county, more than 70,000 people were ordered to evacuate and at least five were left dead as fierce winds fueled the fires, which have burned unimpeded since Tuesday. The fires have destroyed hundreds of buildings.
"A firefight with multiple fire hydrants drawing water from the system for several hours is unsustainable," said Mark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works.
Janisse Quinones, CEO and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said the demand for water to fight fires at lower elevations was hampering the city's ability to refill water tanks at higher elevations.
The lack of water hampered efforts particularly in Pacific Palisades, an upscale coastal enclave where a wildfire has consumed nearly 12,000 acres (4,856 hectares).
TANKS FILLED IN ADVANCE
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said that in advance of the windstorm, it had filled all available water tanks in the city, including three 1-million-gallon (3.8-million-litre) tanks in the Palisades area.
The area had exhausted the three water storage tanks by early Wednesday, Quinones said in a press briefing.
"We're fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging," she added, noting that Pacific Palisades experienced four times the normal water demand for 15 hours as firefighters battled the blaze.
The department urged Angelenos to conserve water, and said it had deployed 18 water trucks of 2,000 to 4,000 gallons since Tuesday to help firefighters.
Lund said the nature of the fires was such that it was nearly impossible to arrange enough water in advance.
"If everything catches fire at once, there's not going to be enough water for everybody," he said.
"There's just no way that you could fit the pipes to work to move that much water across that area in a short period of time."
Gregory Pierce, director of the UCLA Water Resources Group and an adjunct professor at the Department of Urban Planning, said the fires were unusually intense even by Southern California standards. His brother's house burned down, he said.
He said the problem was not a lack of water so much as the difficulties in rapidly getting large amounts of water to a specific point where it was needed, which would entail major investments in power and infrastructure.
Sanah Chung, a Pacific Palisades resident who spoke to a reporter while hosing down hedges and trees in his front yard, said governments at all levels should have been more proactive in preparing for the fires.
"There must be some things we can do to try to mitigate this. Please. Fire hydrants are empty. Firefighters are doing everything they can, but we need to do things more proactively before," Chung, 57, told Reuters.
