By their brilliance and intensity, the fires which have ravaged Los Angeles since Tuesday have put its fire-fighting infrastructure under severe strain, giving rise to questions and criticism.
• Also read: IN PICTURES | Fires in Los Angeles: the wind weakens, criticism increases
• Also read: [PHOTOS] Here are all the stars who lost their homes in the fires ravaging Los Angeles
• Also read: Died for love of her pets
The fact is striking: fire hydrants which find themselves dry in the middle of fighting the flames, in the upscale district of Pacific Palisades, devoured since Tuesday by the main source of this violent wave of fires.
“We need answers to know what happened,” California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom wrote in an open letter on Friday.
Calling the lack of water supply and loss of pressure at fire hydrants in the early hours “deeply disturbing”, he called for “a full independent review” of the water services in the second largest city in the United States.
“The network in a city like Los Angeles, which is actually a collection of cities more than a century old, is designed to fight fires in individual homes. The services are structured to respond to fires in commercial or residential buildings,” Chris Sheah, professor of disaster management at Paul Smith University on the east coast, told AFP.
“The amount of water used for a fire” of this type “is very different from that used for a fire that affects thousands of hectares. They had so many connected trucks, so many elements pulling on the system, it’s no surprise that it was overwhelmed,” said the specialist. “That’s to be expected.”
Lack of “personnel, resources and funds”
The first operations carried out subjected the system to a water demand four times higher than normal for around fifteen hours, assesses the head of the city’s water and energy department Janisse Quiñones in the New York Times.
Beyond that, the head of the Los Angeles fire department, Kristin Crowley, is alarmed by a lack of structural resources.
-“I’ve been saying for three years that we need more help. The current situation cannot continue,” she insisted on Friday on CNN, regretting that her services lacked “staff, resources and funds”.
“We have data that shows we need 62 additional fire stations, that there has been a 55 percent increase in call volume since 2010. And guess what? We respond to it with fewer firefighters,” she gets annoyed.
If his mother’s house, in the disaster-stricken town of Altadena, miraculously escaped the raging flames, “California is a state that burns, we should not be overwhelmed when it comes to firefighters,” Kalen said. Astoor, thirty-something legal assistant. “That’s where we need to put money: (against) earthquakes and fires.”
A few days before his return to the White House, President-elect Donald Trump seized on these dramatic events, among other things by accusing outgoing President Joe Biden and the governor of California, both Democrats, of “gross incompetence » and “bad management”. “It’s all his fault!!!”, attacked the Republican about Gavin Newsom.
“It’s their reality”
“The fact that there are so few people dead (eleven according to the authorities’ latest report), despite the massive material losses, testifies to the timely action of the authorities and the firefighters. People are not trapped, which is a significant risk with such powerful winds and dry conditions,” notes Chris Sheah.
“California firefighters are among the best in the world. They are so well trained in these fires, more than in most places, because this is their reality,” he continues.
How can we better combat them in the future?
“Are we expanding the water network to increase supply? Are we hiring more firefighters?” asks the expert. “These are issues that politicians must manage with the local population. It’s a benefit-risk calculation: we can reduce the risk by so much, it’s going to cost so much more.”
“There were up to more than 8,000 firefighters mobilized. And all those in the region who were not working were called back,” he continues. “Do we need a system of this scale all the time and are we willing to pay for it”? That’s the whole question.”
