Plans to provide firefighters in Los Angeles and Orange counties with nearly unlimited salt water to fight fires have been stalled for more than a decade, despite the ever-looming threat of large-scale blazes brought on by earthquakes and strong winds.
“I don’t think fire officials recognized the need for it in Southern California,” said Charles Scorsone, a researcher and engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, who first developed the emergency water concept in 2011. .
Scorsone, who studies the behavior of large fires that often accompany earthquakes, wrote the proposal on behalf of the state’s Earthquake Safety Commission at the time.
To combat any fire caused by wind or earthquakes, “water is the only answer,” he says. To supply it, he envisioned a network of fixed pumping stations capable of delivering thousands of gallons of seawater per minute through three-foot-diameter pipes that ran through the base of Los Angeles’ elaborate storm drain network.
To tap into this water, firefighters could rely on another technological innovation: portable water systems pioneered in San Francisco in the 1980s. The system is credited with providing thousands of gallons of water per minute to extinguish fires in the Marina area after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Former SFFD Deputy Chief Frank Blackburn recalls that the system, which relies on portable hoses and fire hydrants, saved the day when the city’s water system was damaged and depleted in an earthquake.
“There was a fire, but we were able to keep it within a block and extinguish it and prevent it from spreading,” he said. “You can’t control the fire, so what you have to do is control the area around the fire to prevent it from spreading. But you do need a water supply.”
Shortly after Malibu’s devastating fire in 1996, Blackburn recalled presenting the portable system concept to Los Angeles and Malibu officials. He said it can send water up to a mile away in just 30 minutes.
“We did a large-scale demonstration using a portable water system,” Blackburn said. “They liked everything we had, but like everything else, they didn’t want to spend money on it.”
“I think it would be very useful in places near the ocean,” said Paul Grisanti, a former Malibu City Council member who is researching ways to shore up the patchwork water system.
Grisanti said he hasn’t been briefed on the seawater system, but he likes the concept. But he’s also a member of the local fire department and knows it can be a tough sell for them.
“Fire companies are not going to do that because they know that fire pumps are delicate metal equipment and seawater is very corrosive,” he says.
Blackburn acknowledges the scope of his system is limited, but says the cleaning equipment will prevent corrosion. And I can’t help but wonder if things would have been different if the portable saltwater system I proposed had been installed in the Palisades or Malibu 30 years ago.
“Fireboats could be anchored just offshore and provide all the water they need,” he said. “They’re right next to the largest source of water on Earth, the Pacific Ocean, but there’s no way they can access the water or use it to fight fires.”
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