LADWP says it never ran out of water in Pacific Palisades during fire, so why did hydrants run dry?
The water pressure issues during the Palisades Fire revealed a weakness in the ability to save property and lives.
PACIFIC PALISADES, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- On January 7 and 8, our ABC7 teams in the field covering the Palisades Fire interviewed desperate homeowners who reported that they, along with firefighters, didn't have water.
"They're out of water," said one man. "It does feel helpless when you're watching it burn and there's nothing you can do."
Another homeowner said all the water was off, forcing him to take drastic measures.
"I was bucketing out of my Jacuzzi and a pool across the way."
As residents watched their homes burn, firefighters told them there was nothing they could do because they had no water.
We were forced out by lack of resources. It didn't need to happen.Pacific Palisades resident
When the fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. on January 7, Tom Doran and his family didn't leave, choosing to stay behind and try to save their home. But he says at 9:30 p.m., the hose he was using to put out a hot spot near his garage ran dry.
His home burned to the ground a few hours later.
"We were forced out by lack of resources," he said. "It didn't need to happen. It shouldn't have happened. Dozens of friends lost their homes up here. That is a crime."
Through a public records request, Eyewitness News obtained an email from January 9 sent by Erik Scott, the public information officer for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The email was sent to top officials in the department, writing in part, "We are experiencing challenges with water pressure while battling the Pacific Palisades Fire."
But in multiple interviews with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, officials maintain they never ran out of water.
They said the problem was that demand reached four times the normal use.
"We had plenty of water," said LADWP CEO and Chief Engineer Janisse Quiñones. "Our system was working as designed. We were above code requirements, and we had more water than required by the fire code."
According to LADWP, Los Angeles has a single water system, meaning the water supplied to your home is the same water that feeds fire hydrants.
"We believe that our system performed above and beyond what the requirements of any municipal system would be," said Anselmo Collins, the senior assistant general manager at LADWP who's in charge of the water system. "It's not designed for wildfire protection."
The system is designed to put out house fires, not multiple neighborhoods on fire at the same time.
How does Pacific Palisades get water?
The Pacific Palisades gets water from the 36-inch Westgate trunk line, which runs from the Stone Canyon Reservoir in Bel Air along Sunset Boulevard to the Palisades.
Pump stations move the water from the trunk line to higher elevations in the Palisades, including three 1-million gallon tanks and the 117-million gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir, which has been out of service for over a year.
On January 7, the Marquez Knolls tank in the Palisades ran dry at 4:45 p.m., just hours into the fire.
Then, at 8:30 p.m., the trailer tank in Palisades Highlands ran dry and by 3 a.m. the following morning, the Temescal tank was empty.
LADWP said they couldn't refill the tanks fast enough because of demand.
The situation was so dire, LADWP considered shutting off water to other neighborhoods on the Westside to help the Palisades, but decided against it because the fire was moving toward those neighborhoods and ended up reaching them.
"We had a lot of different hydrants being used simultaneously, and also the fact that certain properties ... they left the water running to saturate the area to protect it from the area," said Collins. "On top of that, as structures would burn, now that service connection became almost like a leak because there's no structure, the water would continue to flow, and all that is taking water away from the pipelines. You continue to send water, but the water is going through all these different areas where it's escaping the system, and that's the reason why the pressure kept dropping, dropping and dropping, and by increasing the amount of water going there, we couldn't increase the pressure because we have all these points of escape."
When the Marquez Knolls tank was low, LADWP sent a team in to re-route water, but they had to be evacuated because the fire reached the tank.
It took two days before LADWP crews could get back into the Palisades to turn off the water at the homes that had burned.
Attorney Roger Behle is suing LADWP on behalf of more than 750 Palisades residents.
"The water supply system in the Palisades was not maintained properly," he said. "It wasn't repaired properly, and that left firefighters with the inability to use the resources they so desperately needed. Some people say, 'Well, all the water in the world wouldn't have made a difference.' We know that several property owners, including Rick Caruso, had his own private firefighting team that had water and resources, and were able to save several structures."
A centerpiece of Behle's case is the Santa Ynez Reservoir located in the hills of Pacific Palisades, which has been offline since January 2024 because of repairs to its cover.
Numerous investigations are underway, including one ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom into why the reservoir was out of service and what difference it would have made in fighting the fire.
I've never had a instance in the city of L.A. where I ran out of water. Something went wrong.Retired LAFD Batallion Chief Mike Castillo
Retired LADWP General Manager Marty Adams told Eyewitness News he doesn't believe the reservoir would have saved the Palisades, but it could have helped.
"Any amount of water is good. Any amount of water would have helped the situation," he said.
But Behle and 40-year retired LAFD Batallion Chief Mike Castillo - who is assisting the legal team - say there's no doubt the reservoir would have boosted the water supply.
"We ran out of water in the Palisades," said Behle. "We should not have run out of water in the Palisades, 117 million gallons of water would have made a difference. I defy anybody to explain to me how having an extra 117 million gallons of water was inconsequential."
"I've fought many, many fires ... commercial fires," explained Castillo. "We've had some low water pressure, but in those instances, the DWP at our request was able to boost the pressure. I've never had a instance in the city of L.A. where I ran out of water. Something went wrong."
The hurricane force winds in the Palisades grounded air support the evening of January 7, but Castillo, who worked the Skirball and Getty fires also in the Santa Monica Mountains, said firefighters on the ground are trained to put out embers that land in neighborhoods during a wind-driven fire.
"That puts 100% of the firefight on the ground resources that need the tools to do their job, such as water," he said.
For Doran, shock has turned to anger.
"One fire engine at the top of the block at 10:30 when we came back around, but it was just parked up there. There was no water. They couldn't do anything," said Doran.
