This November 2024 one-acre brush fire saw 60 firefighters immediately on scene. The Santa Ynez Reservoir adjacent to the fire was empty.
Photo: KTLA
Governor Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation regarding the water supply in Pacific Palisades in January 2025 after two reservoirs were found dry and hydrants weren’t working.
Yesterday, November 20, the state released their findings and even if there had been water, it was reported nothing could have stopped the deadly fire that destroyed nearly 7,000 homes and killed 12.
According to these state agencies: the California Environmental Protection Agency, the Natural Resources Agency, the Office of Emergency Services, the State Water Board, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Department of Water Resources there wouldn’t have been enough water (117 million gallons in the Santa Ynez Reservoir) even if it had been full to put the fire out. The report noted that this reservoir was for drinking purposes.
The report conveniently ignores early newspapers and historical records that reported the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which was built in 1968 and put into service in 1970, was built for firefighting, and built after the 1961 Bel Air-Brentwood and Santa Ynez wildfires. click here.
In this 11-page document, the agencies note that during the January Fires, Southern California water supplies were robust; that draining the Santa Ynez reservoir was necessary for public health; that it was empty during the Palisades Fire and that the reservoir’s primary purpose was to provide clean drinking water. They note that equally important was pre-positioning and a multi-pronged approach to combat wildfires.
According to the November 20 L.A. Times story (Even a Full Reservoir Wouldn’t Have Ensured Water in Palisades Fire, California Officials Say) click here.
The Times write: “DWP officials have said they took steps to make water available for firefighters, including by deploying water tankers and trucks to Pacific Palisades. However, the Los Angeles Fire Department said that firefighters faced delays in getting vital water trucks into the area.”
The story failed to discuss the history of the Santa Ynez Reservoir and also failed to mention how helicopters in the past had used water from that reservoir.
On November 19, 2024 after a November 13 five-acre Highlands brush fire click here., this editor received an email from a Highlands resident “The big reservoir here in the Highlands seems to be empty.”
This editor said she’d check with DWP, to which the resident responded, “I’m afraid the DWP was not aware of it.”
DWP did not respond, but LAFD did and told this editor that the helicopters hook up to a fire hydrant by the reservoir.
The resident was sure that he had seen helicopters in the past using the reservoir, and CTN was told that federal and county helicopters had done bucket dips, but that city fire used the hydrant.
In a July 2009 Palisadian-Post story, written by this editor, it was reported that DWP has also constructed a new cistern at Pacific Palisades Reservoir (on upper Chautauqua) for the L.A. Fire Department’s large helicopters to use for fighting brush fires. ‘Once the floating cover is in place, these helicopters will no longer be able to dip their snorkels into the Santa Ynez Reservoir, but will instead have to use the cistern at Pacific Palisades Reservoir,’ said DWP Project Manager Paul Rugar. ‘However, the smaller choppers will still be able to land at Santa Ynez Reservoir and use the fire hydrants to fill their tanks.’
“The report confirms that the Santa Ynez Reservoir was offline during the fire to make necessary repairs and that issues with water pressure during the fire response were due to the extraordinary demand on the system, not because of inadequate water supply,” said Ellen Cheng, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Interestingly a question that L.A. Times writer Ian James could have asked, was “is the hydrant by the reservoir still used for filling helicopters?”
The agency report recommends that communities should prepare for year-round wildfires, climate change will continue, fire season is now yearlong and to ensure water tenders are available and that prepositioning is fundamental.
If the Santa Ynez reservoir is for drinking water, and it’s not working now because no one can make or repair a decent cover and it won’t be fixed until some time in 2027, then how am I getting drinking water now? My vote is to continue to get drinking water from wherever I’m getting it now, and use the Santa Ynez reservoir for its original designed purpose: fire fighting – with no cover!
Typical. Repurpose an asset by changing the story and hope people are too cowed to push back. The Chautauqua reservoir was developed to reduce turn around time for fire helicopters. That facility has been offline for years without any explanation. All water in the system is ‘drinking’ water. That does not mean it is required to be used for drinking water only or that drinking water customer demand is impacted by the availability of the water contained in ether location. What nobody is asking: why did the three 1 million gal tanks go dry? Each of the pumps responsible for filling the tanks failed so once the water was used up that was the end of the water supply for upper palisades. Oops. Guess the deferred maintenance bit them in the butt. Get the maintenance records for those pumps to round out the story of LADWP’s complete failure. In the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter as LAFD didn’t need the water for the firefighters as they were never deployed from Will Rogers beach IC.
There seems to be systemic sabotage to make it impossible for homeowners to insure their property. No insurance company will insure a community located next to wildland interface with ZERO emergency reservoir water available. The fact Santa Ynez Reservoir has to fixed AGAIN (is the 3rd time now?!) demonstrates ineptitude and wasteful management beyond common sense. It’s so obvious….
If DWP decides to not bring the Chautauqua Reservoir back online, it further proves The Palisades must manage its own resources, as the city and state will only further flush us into the toilet.
I would have given anything to have had Japanese, Danish, German or even New York-trained firefighters on duty January 7. I’ve lived in all these places and seen how they fight fires and it would have been unthinkable for any of them to sat on their rumps during a fire. They would have used water from the pools, the pond off of Sunset, the Pacific Ocean , or whatever else they needed to do to fight the fires. They would never have given up. Indeed, Danish firefighters don’t even HAVE port-a-potties like the ones ours required on Will Rogers Beach January 7. Why? Because, as one of my Danish firefighter friends told me: “We don’t have time to sit around during fires. If it came to someone really needing to use a bathroom we’d just use one from the houses we’re rescuing.” This report claiming that dry hydrants are suddenly an excuse for doing nothing shows the continuing infantizing of our non-responders. We cannot rebuild as long as weakling are “manning” our fire stations and this report saying they couldn’t have prevented the destruction is an urgent call to replace them (maybe start with Caruso’s crew and the other private contractors who had a 100% success rate in the Palisades).
Sue the water in the pipes for the hydrants is the same pipes for drinking water. It is for both drinking and firefighting. Water systems are always designed for fire fighting as the demands are larger the drinking requirements.
CAGW does not exist.
I don’t believe it, the reservoir would have helped fight the fire.
This is a really bad cover-up to save them all from liability. Why is Janisse Quinones still in her job? She failed us and I don’t feel safe with her in charge. Karen Bass has now hired another loser for Fire Chief, to go along with her long list of losers, Quinones, Va
……the woman with five names who ran LHASA and just can’t find over 2 billion dollars, her deputy mayor who was found guilty of phoning in bomb threats to City Hall. Our City Attorney is on the wrong side of every issue, we are spending, millions, unauthorized millions to defend LHASA when we should be prosececuting them.
why aren’t any of my comments published?
So a Newsom mandated study confirms what Newsom and Bass has told us all along, “nothing to see here, so move on”.
All this fingerpointing is disturbing. I walked out my front door (up El Hito)about 10:30ish on Jan. 7 and saw a very black funnel cloud in the sky. The wind at that time was not blowing hard as the top of the funnel was in a perfect shape and not being blown around. The super scoopers came over the house and comforted me that they would get this fire out. The fire chief and mayor knew that the reservoir was empty (maybe it skipped their memories), so every effort should have been put into fighting this beginning fire. There are many swimming pools and an ocean full of water to access, but the salt water would have hurt the soil. Well, hello, here we are with burned down homes and bad soil anyway. Terrible mismanagement of a catastrophe and, if better organized, this didn’t have to happen … in my humble opinion!
The conclusion that “nothing could have stopped the January 7, 2025 Palisades Fire—even with a full reservoir” ignores the most critical factor: the initial fire was not fully extinguished.
its concerning when both are parties to the fire that destroyed our lives collude to whitewash the facts. We need a completely independent team of experts to hire a third party to do an unbiased assessment.
We know that LA City does not differentiate between drinking water and firefighting water. The pressure for a reservoir high up would have augmented the water pressure (hydrostatic pressure) when the decrepit LA City pumps could not keep up.
Both reservoirs should have been full. Empty them in spring and then do the fixes.
Remember, they were able to repair the 1o Freeway in less than 3 months!
Patty,
I’ve been in the field all day and I’m now just getting to the computer.
Sue
It is telling that the report (https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/NewsRoom/Educational-Portal/19Nov2025PalisadesFireWaterSupply.pdf) asserts but makes to attempt to support the assertion that the reservoir’s purpose was for drinking water. I am sure that this wild claim comes as a surprise to anyone who has ever lived in the Palisades.
It seems they found enough water to white wash bureaucratic incompetence.