As Altadena and the Palisades rebuild, how should the region expand water resources for firefighting?
UCLA water and climate researchers answer common questions in a new guide, out Thursday, and provide advice for rebuilding. They note that urban firefighting agencies cannot put out wildfires alone, and “no amount of water or any urban water system currently existing in the world could have stopped the fires completely.” Home-hardening, defensible space, and other measures beyond expanded water systems will be a necessary part of rebuilding, researchers said.
Authors and Q&A highlights are below. Read the full guide on UCLA Newsroom, or reach out to connect with the experts.
- Gregory Pierce, Research and Co-Executive Director, UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation: gpierce@luskin.ucla.edu
- Silvia R. González, Director of Research, UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute
- Lauren Dunlap, Project Manager of Energy Equity, UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
- Faith Kearns, Director of Research Communications, Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, Arizona State University’s Global Futures Lab: faith.kearns@asu.edu
Report excerpts:
- “Urban firefighting agencies are not designed to fight wildfires on their own. … These systems are not designed to fight largescale wildfires involving entire blocks or neighborhoods.”
- “Active fighting of wildfires depends heavily on the capacity of fire departments’ personpower, equipment, and supplies, as well as weather conditions that enable them to use equipment safely (especially by air, which may be particularly affected by winds). The importance of water supply should thus be considered relative to the entire toolbox of ways to fight urbanized wildfires, including managing wildland areas, making homes more fire-safe, and investing more in firefighting forces to provide enough people and resources to deploy a variety of techniques, including building fire lines.”
- “No urban water system could provide enough water to stop the largest and most extreme of wildfires (like the January 2025 LA fires). Stopping fires of this magnitude requires thinking beyond water. All experts with experience in urban water systems or wildfire fighting have said it is likely that no amount of water or any urban water system currently existing in the world could have stopped the fires completely, particularly under the high wind conditions early on in the firefight.”
- “Fire hydrants are specifically designed and maintained to provide fire flow for urban fires, but not for wildfires. … When fire hydrants have low water pressure, it is likely because many people are using water at the same time to protect property, damaged pipes are leaking water, and/or electric power service is interrupted.”
- “Better public infrastructure or private investments could help water systems provide adequate fire flow. However, other interventions are needed, as no amount of water can stop large-scale wildfires. With sufficient funding, water systems could increase local water supply (more water overall to fight fires), water infrastructure (tanks, hydrants, generators, shutoff valves, etc.), and power supply and infrastructure to maintain water pressure (generators, batteries, etc.) to improve their firefighting capabilities. Policymakers could require or support private property owners to make investments — such as roof sprinkler systems, prefilled tanks, and private hydrants — to help fight fires without harming public supply systems’ functioning during fire events. However, … there are few, if any, cheap and easy answers to make water systems more effective in fighting fires. And at the end of the day, no amount of water supply can prevent or end the scale of the January 2025 LA fires, and we have to consider the full range of fire preparedness measures that can help us avoid future tragedies of this sort.”
- “We can limit future wildfires by preventing further climate change — a major driver of increasingly frequent and intense wildfires.”
