[jyl]

Doesn’t matter how much water in the reservoir, what matters is how much water you can flow, and that is set by the water main diameter.

The fire started in the chapparal upwind from a development. By the time it was spotted, it was already several acres. It grew from 10 ac to 20 ac very quickly - less than an hour - with the 60-100 mph wind, and was already a large fire when it blew down into the streets and tightly packed houses. Blew down - it wasn’t spreading like you think of fire as doing, it was being blown by high winds. High wind is Nature’s flamethrower.

The houses were mostly wood, close up against the chapparal and densely surrounded by dry, flammable landscaping, right up to and overhanging the structures. The houses ignited very quickly - few minutes.

Clouds of flaming embers were flying downwind, I saw video and it was unreal looking, like rivers of fire in the air. The fire jumped downhill not one house at a time, but blocks at a time. Firefighters can set up and work on one house, meanwhile the fire is jumping over their heads and igniting dozens more houses further downhill. Hopeless.

I heard it said that there wasn’t much organized firefighting in Palisades in the first few hours, and that’s because the firefighters were trying to get people out, going door to door, lives come first. By 2-3 pm, so just a few hours after the fire was first spotted, it was already halfway through the neighborhood and making for the ocean.

The only way I can think you’d stop this fire is if a satellite was continuously monitoring for hot spots, water-dropping aircraft on call 24/7 like ready fighters on a carrier, immediately dispatch to any hot spot detected . . . you have maybe 30 minutes before the fire already covers 10 acres . . . oh wait, the planes can’t fly in winds that high . . . helicopters don’t carry enough water . . . engines can’t get into the hills . . . what’s Plan C? Maybe we humans just can’t always win against Nature.