“If Santa Ynez had been active, there probably would have been some help in maintaining the pressure. It wouldn’t have been a panacea. It probably wouldn’t have lasted forever,” Adams said. .
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment. Department officials told the Los Angeles Times that an evaluation is underway to determine the impact the unavailability of the reservoir will have on fire response, but water systems are not designed for such severe wildfires. He also pointed out that there was no such thing.
The department previously said it had filled storage tanks at all available water facilities in Los Angeles, including three 1 million-gallon tanks in the Palisades area, ahead of the storm that spread the fire. .
Adams said a typical water service to the Pacific Palisades would include a 30-inch diameter “mainline” running from the Upper Stone Canyon Reservoir along Sunset Boulevard to the lower-elevation Santa Ynez Reservoir. It is said that it depends.
When the Palisades Fire broke out, firefighters and homeowners began using an incredible amount of water. Janice Quiñones, chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, previously said the Palisades system was seeing about four times the normal demand.
If the Santa Ynez Reservoir were operational, water managers could “split the system into two parts” and use water from Santa Ynez to supply water to parts of the Pacific Palisades. It could have been, Adams said. “Santa Ynez could have acted as a small aquarium and provided some relief.”
Such a move would have reduced demand and contributed to increased water pressure elsewhere.
Still, he said, the water likely won’t be able to flow fast enough to meet firefighters’ incredible demands.
“The limiting factor was the pipes,” Adams said, adding that the water infrastructure was designed to allow firefighters to extinguish a few homes or commercial buildings rather than a wildfire.
“The system is designed for a typical city-based fire, not an entire city on fire,” he says. “No domestic water system has ever been built on this scale.”
Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Christine Crowley said in an interview with Fox 11 Los Angeles that she did not know the reservoir was not operational at the time the fire started.
“When firefighters come to a hydrant, we expect there to be water. We don’t control the water supply,” Crowley said.
Adams added that while it was possible to pre-fill the reservoir due to fire hazards, it didn’t make sense because no one knew where a fire would start.
“We need to keep it in a reservoir in isolation, just in case,” he said.
And after that, the water in the Santa Ynez Reservoir was considered non-potable and may have been wasted.
“They probably should have issued a boil water notice. If they didn’t use it, the only way to get rid of it would be to dump it in the ocean,” Adams said. “If the Rams weren’t playing, it would have been like betting on who would win the Super Bowl before the season.”
Santa Ynez Reservoir can store up to 117 million gallons, or 359 acre-feet of water. One acre-foot of water is approximately the volume of two Olympic-sized swimming pools. However, not all of that volume is available.
