California Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for an investigation into how the lack of water pressure and water supply has impacted ongoing efforts to fight the devastating Los Angeles fires.
Newsom, 57, issued a letter to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Los Angeles County Public Works, calling the ordeal “deeply troubling.”
“While water supplies from local fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas, losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors,” Newsom wrote in the letter.
“We need answers to how that happened,” Newsom added in his memo, stating that officials have been instructed to provide “an incident after-incident report.”
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A firefighter battles the Eaton Fire on January 8, 2025 in Altadena, California.
“I am calling for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir,” Newsom wrote on X. “We need answers to ensure this does not happen again and we have every resource available to fight these catastrophic fires.”
Related: Before-and-After Photos Show the Sudden Devastation from the L.A. Wildfires
The governor explained on X Thursday, Jan. 9, that Southern California’s “water supplies are well-equipped to support local communities fighting the wildfires.”
“Many of the state’s largest reservoirs are currently at or above their historic average storage levels for this time of year,” he added.
Meanwhile, the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir has been out of commission for nearly a year due to repairs, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. The floating cover had a several-foot-long tear in it, making space for things like debris and bird droppings to fall into the water supply. It’s not clear how long the repairs will take.
Related: L.A. Residents Are Being Told to Boil Water ‘Until Further Notice’ Due to the Pacific Palisades and Eaton Fires
Palisades Village mall owner Rick Caruso slammed the lack of water for the fatal fires.
“There’s no water in the fire hydrants,” the businessman, a former commissioner for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said, per the Times. Caruso finished behind Karen Bass in the 2022 L.A. mayoral election.
“The firefighters are there [in the neighborhood], and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning,” Caruso continued, adding, “It should never happen.”
Local officials addressed public outcry after fire hydrants ran out of water in the Pacific Palisades amid raging wildfires, leaving crews unable to put out fires.
“We had a tremendous demand on our system in the Palisades. We pushed the system to the extreme,” Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said during a press conference Wednesday, Jan. 8. Quiñones urged “customers to really conserve water” as the fire department continues to battle the ongoing blazes.
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Firefighters battle winds and flames as multiple beachfront homes go up in flames along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu in the Palisades Fire on Tuesday, January 7, 2025.
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More than 130,000 people have fled their homes as a series of wildfires rapidly continues to engulf large parts of the Los Angeles area as of Jan. 10. In just a handful of days, the blazes rapidly grew to some 29,000 acres or 45 square miles, and there have been at least 11 fire-related deaths.
Many residents, including celebrities, were forced to leave their homes. PEOPLE reported Adam Brody and Leighton Meester, Anna Faris, Cobie Smulders and Taran Killam, John Goodman, Jamie Chung and Bryan Greenberg and Jennifer Grey as some of the stars who have lost their homes or had to evacuate.
Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.
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