XPost: alt.wildland.firefighting, ca.water, alt.los-angeles
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-11-15/water-pressure-became- an-issue-fighting-the-mountain-fire-how-bad-was-it

In a matter of hours, the Mountain fire charged rapidly across the Santa
Susana Mountains and into nearby foothill neighborhoods, forcing
widespread evacuations and demanding intense firefights from crews
showered in red-hot embers.

Even as hundreds of firefighters around the region immediately kicked into action, the wind-driven blaze grew in unpredictable and dangerous ways,
razing homes, tearing through orchards and threatening thousands living in
and around Camarillo, Moorpark and Santa Paula.

But officials made an early decision that would pay off: by prioritizing life-saving missions over property protection, no one died in the
otherwise devastating wildfire. Only a few minor injuries were reported.

But not everything went off without a hitch. About five hours after the
fire ignited near Somis around 9 a.m. on Nov. 6, some firefighters hit a
snag in their response efforts.

“We are having some water issues up here where we’ve got low water
pressure,” one firefighter could be heard saying in recordings of radio
traffic that day. He asked command staff to check with the water providers
and sort out any problems.

Then, hours later in the hills around Camarillo, Santa Barbara County Fire Capt. Hugh Montgomery — responding to Ventura County’s call for aid — said
that his engine had hit a roadblock after successfully salvaging about a
dozen burning homes.

“We were inside of a structure fire and starting to make good headway when
the hydrants went dry,” he said.

That evening at a news conference, Ventura County Fire Capt. Trevor
Johnson addressed a question about water issues, saying that water
availability remained a challenge, and a dangerous one.

“Just to locate fire hydrants when the water system is failing —
everything is dangerous out there,” Johnson said.

Reports about water pressure issues and dry hydrants splashed across the evening news that night with images of smoldering homes in the background.

Specifics on the extent of the problem weren’t immediately available, but
two water pumps in the Camarillo foothills — the area hit hardest by fire losses — became inactive during the firefight, halting or slowing the
process to refill hillside water tanks that fuel high-elevation fire
hydrants, officials confirmed this week. One pump was completely destroyed
in the blaze while another lost power during Southern California Edison’s planned electricity shutoffs, and it took hours to bring it back online
with a generator, according to officials at the Calleguas Municipal Water District.

However, water and firefighting authorities maintain the disruptions are expected and planned for during major wildfires, asserting that it simply shifts firefighting operations. They were adamant that water remained
available at other sources nearby.

“Did water run out? Yes,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said at
a community meeting this week. “We had adequate firefighting water for a
long time and [firefighters] used it, and then when those hydrants — on
the west side or in the [Camarillo] Estates — wherever they went dry, firefighters adjust to that. ... We’re used to that. .... The fact is we
never quit fighting fire.”

It’s still unclear exactly how widespread the water disruptions were, if
they could have been avoided or if any more homes could have been saved
with uninterrupted water flow, given the erratic inferno that was feeding
on parched vegetation and exploding amid hurricane-force winds. Gardner
said all of that will be part of a review of the Mountain fire. In total,
more than 240 structures, many of which were primary residences, have been confirmed destroyed and an additional 127 damaged. The almost 20,000-acre
fire was 91% contained Friday.

“If you think of the hundreds of firefighters and the hundreds of
firetrucks we had in the [Camarillo] Heights and Estates, every one of
them was hooked up to a hydrant at one point and they were flowing a lot
of water and those waters are held in tanks — so those tanks are going to lower,” Gardner said. “I know we suffered great damage, but thousands of
homes were saved.”

Even in the best of circumstances, this wildfire was extremely volatile, putting firefighters on defense as embers jumped up to two miles ahead of
the main fire and intense winds pushed streams of water sideways and
grounded some retardant-dropping aircraft, according to Ventura County
Fire Deputy Chief Chad Cook.

“Gusting over 80 mph is something that does structural damage to homes,”
Cook said. “You add the element of fire to the wind, you have a different animal — you have an animal that is not controllable.”

Still, residents in the area have continued to ask about the water supply issues, especially given that the National Weather Service had issued dire alerts about fire-friendly conditions in the area and Southern California Edison warned that shutoffs were likely.

“At some point in time, somebody didn’t have water and that’s not good in
a fire situation for all the obvious reasons — from safety on to saving a house,” said Steve Bennett, a state Assembly member representing Ventura.
“It’s something that you just don’t want to have when these fires break
out.”

The water pump issue has haunted Bennett since the 2017 Thomas fire, when
it took Ventura officials hours to get pumps on backup generators so water could resume flowing to fire hydrants. After getting few answers about
what occurred then, Bennett sued, but said the details he was later
provided were still inadequate. He doesn’t want that to play out again.

“The thing that we need to investigate ... is to make sure we don’t run
out of water any sooner than we have to,” Bennett said. “During a red flag [warning], you should fill all your tanks in advance. ... Every place
should have a generator that can handle what to do when the power goes
out.”

It’s not immediately clear exactly what preparations each local water
provider took before the Mountain fire, but only two experienced water
supply issues during the firefight, according to Daniel Cohen, the
emergency response coordinator for Calleguas Municipal Water District,
which distributes water from the State Water Project to local providers.

Crestview Mutual Water Co. had the pump that lost power because of the
safety shutoffs. Cohen said electricity was cut to the pump at 2 p.m. and
did not get a generator to restore operation until 11 p.m. on the first
day of the fire.

Crestview did not respond to questions for more details about the outage
or its preparations, but according to its website, it operates three wells providing water to 625 customers in the Camarillo area. Its service area includes some of the worst-hit streets from the fire, including Cerro
Crest and Estaban drives, where more than 20 homes were destroyed,
according to the county’s preliminary map of damaged and destroyed
structures and one of the water suppliers’ footprint.

Pleasant Valley Mutual Water Co. had the pump station that was destroyed
by fire. In an undated statement after the blaze, the company explained
that “one of the pumping stations that fill the water tanks for this zone
was destroyed in the Mountain fire, and the other station lost power.”

The water company said it installed a portable generator for that second
pump, but it wasn’t clear how long that took and it did not respond to
further questions from The Times.

However, the vice president of its board, Jay Dunlap, said he understands
that people are upset but that it may be misdirected — at least for
customers of Pleasant Valley Mutual. He said his neighbors need to realize
that the water companies were all facing “a once-in-a-lifetime fire event”
— though history has shown this area is in a corridor known for wildfires,
with several major blazes occurring over the last few decades.

“It’s a hard situation, I understand that,” Dunlap said, adding that his
heart goes out to all those who lost homes. “It wasn’t that we weren’t prepared. ... We can’t stop Mother Nature from burning up the pump.”

Pleasant Valley’s customers also live on some of the streets with the most
fire damage, including West Highland Drive and Santa Cruz Way, where more
than a dozen homes were destroyed on each, according to the county and
water district maps.

Ian Prichard, the deputy general manager at Calleguas Municipal Water
District, said that Pleasant Valley’s system has redundancy — or a built-
in work around — so another pump could refill tanks, albeit more slowly,
after the one pump station burned.

Prichard also explained that these hillside water tanks are designed only
to support a community’s daily use as well as a large structure fire — one
that might take three or four firetrucks. None are designed for a major
fire blowing embers every which way that requires hundreds of firetrucks,
he said.

“Even with electricity ... it puts a lot of stress on that system; you
draw down that tank faster than it can get refilled,” Prichard said. “Firefighters know this, they’ve been fighting wildland-urban interface
fires for a long time.”

However, he was adamant that in this fire “there was still water available
and firefighters knew that and responded accordingly.”

Many fire officials echoed that defense.

“In the higher elevations, there was minimal water pressure due to how
many [trucks] were tapped into the system,” said Capt. Scott Safechuck, a spokesperson for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. “It’s part of
the operations. .... We pivot to how we can get water.”

Prichard did, however, acknowledge that it is best practice for water
providers to top off their water tanks, stage backup generators and
prepare crews for contingency work during a red flag event or possible
fire weather.

But there are no explicit requirements to do so.

Though the California Public Utility Commission has recently required
wireless service providers in high fire regions to ensure backup power for
a minimum of 72 hours because of their vital role in emergency response,
water providers don’t have such mandates. They are only required to have emergency response plans, which include measures for high fire danger and
low pressure, considerations that “may also include portable generators or other equipment necessary to maintain water system operations,” Terrie
Prosper, a spokesperson for the commission, said in a statement.

Bennett said he understands there are circumstances in which water
disruptions can’t be avoided, but he wants to ensure all possible steps
were taken to minimize effects.

“We all have an interest to understand where we had problems and make sure
… we don’t in the future,” Bennett said.

Times staff writers Clara Harter and Nathan Solis contributed to this
report.


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