Hydrants Run Dry as Hellish Wildfires Continue To Engulf Los Angeles County Homes

With wildfires engulfing the Los Angeles region at a rapid pace and fierce Santa Ana winds fueling blazes across nearly 4,000 acres, firefighters are having trouble finding enough water to contain the life- and property-threatening flames.Two people have been killed in the fires, as reports are surfacing out of the Pacific Palisades that many hydrants have been malfunctioning, and many have had barely any water flow.“The hydrants are down,” one firefighter reportedly said on an internal radio system, according to Los Angeles Times. “Water supply just dropped,” another said.A Los Angeles real estate developer, Rick Caruso, owner of the Palisades Village shopping center, told the newspaper that his staff informed him that they were having water issues as well.“There’s no water in the fire hydrants,” Mr. Caruso said. “The firefighters are there and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. [I]t should never happen.”A ‘Systemic Problem’Mr. Caruso, who is a former member of the City’s Board of Water and Power Commissioners and 2022 mayoral candidate, said the lack of water is due to issues with reservoirs feeding hydrants in the neighborhood.“This is a window into a systemic problem of the city — not only of mismanagement, but our infrastructure is old,” he told the Times.A Department of Water and Power spokesman confirmed reports that the water flow was diminished but did not provide details on how large of a scale the issue was, adding that crews were working, “to ensure the availability of water supplies.”“This area is served by water tanks and close coordination is underway to continue supplying the area,” read a statement from the DWP.The trio of fires continue to burn at an excessive rate at Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, and San Altadena since first igniting on Tuesday and spreading at a rate of about five football fields per minute. Nearly 30,000 residents have been evacuated from the affluent suburb of Pacific Palisades, where “many structures” have been destroyed. The fire also reached Malibu, forcing evacuations along the coastline down to Santa Monica.Residents Abandon Cars, Flee on FootRoadways throughout the Pacific Palisades were brought to a standstill as people abandoned their cars and tried to escape the blaze on foot. The traffic jam was severe enough on Palisades Drive that bull dozers were brought in to clear abandoned cars and create a path for emergency vehicles, according to the Associated Press.Some residents were trapped in their neighborhoods Tuesday as a snarled line of vehicles blocked their only viable path out of the area.“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” a Pacific Palisades resident, Kelsey Trainor, said to the AP. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming.”As of Wednesday morning, 0 percent of the fires have been contained and dry conditions coupled with winds whipping up to 100 mph are leading more pockets across Los Angeles County to ignite.“We are having new fires pop up as we speak,” a battalion chief and Public Information Officer at Cal Fire, David Acuna, told CNN. “Once the winds have died down and we’re able to secure some lines, and we have made sure that all the people are out of the way, then we can devote all of our resources towards containing — and then eventually, completely extinguishing the fire.”Early Wednesday morning, a fourth fire sprung up across 15 acres at Tyler, located at nearby Riverside County, according to the Sacramento Bee.Actor James Woods, Others Evacuate While the exact numbers are not clear, multiple homes have been destroyed throughout the region.Actor James Woods posted a series of videos and photos on his X account showing the flames slowly encroaching his home at Pacific Palisades before he and his family were evacuated.“To all the wonderful people who’ve reached out to us, thank you for being so concerned,” Mr. Woods wrote in one post. “Just letting you know that we were able to evacuate successfully. I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing, but sadly houses on our little street are not.”Celebrity couple Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag were among those who lost their home, posting a series of videos on Snapchat that showed how quickly the fire spread to their property.“Well, this isn’t looking good,” Mr. Pratt said on one video that captured fires on the mountain located behind their home. “First time I’ve seen the flames coming over. Aw, man. Okay, I’m going to go pack up I think.”Pasadena in the Line of FireThe wildfires also spread across 1,000 acres in nearby Pasadena, with mandatory evacuation orders issued to nearly 20,000 residents and more than 8,000 structures in danger.The Eaton Fire was spreading so rapidly that staff at the Altadena Senior Care Center were forced to quickly move dozens of elderly residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds to a nearby parking lot where they waited in their bedclothes for ambulances and other vehicles to transport them to a safe location.Another 95 residents from The Terraces at Park Marino, an assisted living facility, were evacuated in gurneys and wheelchairs to a 7-Eleven parking lot across the street as first responders scrambled to find any available vehicles to transport them out of the area, including an armored SWAT vehicle and city bus, according to CBS News.The Eaton Fire also destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center Tuesday evening, according to NBC4 Los Angeles.“It’s like a bad, bad horrific dream to see that it’s not going to be here tomorrow,” Alex Fernandez, who regularly attended the center, told NBC4 as he watched it become engulfed by flames. “This whole place is lighting up.”

Hydrants Run Dry as Hellish Wildfires Continue To Engulf Los Angeles County Homes

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