As massive fires continue to sweep through Los Angeles, firefighters are relying on local water infrastructure not designed for fires of this size, researchers say. Fires in California have grown more explosive because of climate change, which is largely driven by humans burning oil, gas and coal.
And yet prominent right wing influencers and political figures, including President-elect Donald Trump, are falsely blaming the fires' destructiveness on the city not having enough water to fight the blazes. Some online commentators are falsely saying water needed to fight the fires is instead going to pistachio moguls. Others are claiming, inaccurately, that there were "bans on pumping water" and that it's part of a plan by a "globalist elite" to turn burned land into open-air prisons. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made a webpage to fact-check false wildfire narratives, much of them about water.
"We're finger pointing away from the problem," says Stephanie Pincetl, director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA. " We have really no lack of water. What we have is an infrastructure that is not made to fight cataclysmic fires, biblical-size fires."
A reservoir in the Palisades was empty while its cover was getting repaired. And the water systems used to fight the Palisades and Eaton fires couldn't maintain the continuous high water pressures needed, meaning water stopped flowing in some hydrants. Newsom has called for an investigation.
But water and...
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