NEWS'Hydrants Are Down': Firefighters Running Out of Water as Wildfires Rip Through Los Angeles
Los Angeles firefighters are running out of water to fight off the wildfires.
As wildfires ravage Southern California, firefighters are running out of water as they desperately battle the flames rapidly spreading across Los Angeles.
Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes in the Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas as the swift spread of the fires has been fueled by wind gusts exceeding 100 miles per hour.
The Palisades Fire is zero percent contained as it rages throughout the Los Angeles area.
According to firefighters, "The hydrants are down ... water supply just dropped."
"There's no water in the fire hydrants," Billionaire L.A. developer and former commissioner of the city's water board, Rick Caruso, told the Los Angeles Times. "The firefighters are there and there's nothing they can do — we've got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. … It should never happen."
Caruso said the problem stems from the reservoirs that feed the neighborhood's hydrants.
"This is a window into a systemic problem of the city — not only of mismanagement, but our infrastructure is old," Caruso explained.
Firefighters claim the hydrants are 'down.'
On Wednesday, January 8, a spokesperson for the Department of Water and Power claimed crews were working in the neighborhood "to ensure the availability of water supplies."
"This area is served by water tanks and close coordination is underway to continue supplying the area," they added.
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Over 30,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes.
Local fire officials have called the blustery conditions a "worst-case scenario" for fighting the wildfires.
Fox Meteorologist Christopher Tate told outlets: "We had a wind report come in a few minutes ago of 100 mph not far from Pasadena as the Santa Ana wind event has been ongoing."
"The biggest thing that you need for fire propagation is a source of oxygen," Tate explained. "And with the winds being able to transport so much of the smoke and the burned matter away from the fires, there's a whole lot of oxygen that's available to the fires, and it makes it very easy for all of them to spread."
Los Angeles' dry conditions have also exacerbated the fires' spread. Relative humidity has also reportedly been below 20 percent across the L.A. metropolitan area.
According to Cal Fire, California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency as the fires have burned more than 3,000 acres, including several homes, and has zero containment as of Wednesday morning.
Several homes have been burnt down in the ongoing wildfire.
Several celebrities who live in the area, including Mandy Moore, Eugene Levy, James Woods and Star Wars legend Mark Hamill, have been forced to evacuate their homes.
As OK! previously reported, reality TV stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag lost their Pacific Palisades home in the massive blaze just hours after Pratt shared a video of a plane dropping water on the nearby flames on Instagram.
