No, Los Angeles didn’t refuse to fill water reservoirs prior to fires

Fierce Santa Ana winds have hit Southern California, which hasn’t seen more than 0.1 inches of rain since early May. That has led to an outbreak of devastating wildfires, one of which, a fire burning in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, is already the most destructive in the modern history of Los Angeles.

The high winds have made it difficult enough for the firefighters to combat the blazes, but those difficulties have been compounded by apparent water shortages. Social media posts, including this one viewed more than 5 million times, claim that fire hydrants ran out of water because the city and/or county “REFUSED to refill reservoirs.”

Did Los Angeles refuse to fill its water reservoirs prior to fires?

• Janisse Quiñones, CEO and chief engineer of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)
• LADWP spokesperson
• Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center, a think tank that tracks water use and storage data in California

No, Los Angeles didn’t refuse to fill its water reservoirs prior to fires.

Los Angeles filled its water tanks earlier this week, prior to the start of the current wildfire outbreak. Fire hydrants used by firefighters ran out of water because of high water demand that is outpacing the speed at which water service officials can replenish the tanks.

“Fundamentally, it is not correct that LADWP refused to properly fill the reservoir needed to fight the fire,” a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) told VERIFY. “On Monday, LADWP filled all available water storage facility tanks (around 114 throughout the City), including three 1-million gallon tanks in the Palisades area.”

Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center, a think tank that tracks water use and storage data in California, told VERIFY that there isn’t a shortage of water in the area’s reservoirs.

“At no time during this fire has there been a shortage of water in southern California,” Mount said. “Their reservoirs are full. And there is nothing to be done with water that would have changed the course of these fires.”

Homes and fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades both pull their water from the area’s storage tanks, which get their water from several sources, including reservoirs. Even if the city has plenty of water available, an area’s fire hydrants will run out of water if the tanks aren’t being refilled at the same rate the water is being used.

Janisse Quiñones, head of LADWP, said in a news conference that four times the normal demand of water was seen for 15 hours straight in the area of the fires. 

This demand lowered the water pressure, which in turn limited the pipes’ ability to pump water into three large tanks at the speed needed to refill, the LADWP spokesperson said.

Quiñones said the first tank ran dry at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, the first day of the fires. The second tank ran dry at 8:30 p.m. The final tank went dry at around 3:00 a.m. Wednesday.

The LADWP spokesperson told VERIFY that there isn’t a lack of water flowing through the pipes in the Palisades area. The water flowing through the large pipelines in the area are just being used up before it can reach the tanks due to the high demand from other emergency services.

The fires have also hampered the LADWP’s efforts to refill the tanks. In an update posted to its website at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, the LADWP said its crews attempted to refill the water tanks at higher elevations but could not access them because of fire in the vicinity.

To help supply the firefighters with water in the meantime, the LADWP has deployed 19 water trucks between midnight and this morning. Those trucks are refilling at three hydrants identified to have strong water pressure, the LADWP spokesperson said.

The LADWP is also asking its customers in Los Angeles’ Westside to conserve water to reduce the demand in the area.

VERIFY digital journalist Megan Loe contributed to this report.