Inside L.A.’s desperate battle for water as the Palisades fire exploded

Seventeen miles east in downtown L.A., dozens of officials huddled around computers over a long conference room table in the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s emergency operations center. Screens beamed in the system’s water pressure from remote sensors stationed across the city.

With more firefighters rushing to tame the flames the afternoon of Jan. 7, it became increasingly apparent that Palisades needed more water, fast.

In the tanks that regulate pressure in the upper reaches of the canyons, water was beginning to dwindle. DWP officials had to figure out how to boost pressure into the western reaches of the grid, where a 36-inch pipeline ferries water from a Bel-Air reservoir to the Westside before curving uphill into the Palisades Highlands.

They wrestled with a high-stakes choice: shut off water to nearby neighborhoods such as Brentwood, or face diminishing water pressure on the front lines.

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