California Wildfires

Plan to help save LA from mass fires with seawater long-stalled

A UC Berkeley researcher and engineer envisioned a network of fixed pumping stations, capable of delivering thousands of gallons per minute of seawater through three-foot-diameter pipes running at the base of Los Angeles’ elaborate network of storm basins.

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A plan to provide firefighters in Los Angeles and Orange counties almost limitless seawater to fight fires has been stalled for more than a decade, despite the ever-looming threat of mass fires fueled by quakes and high winds.

“I think the fire service just didn't see the need for it in Southern California,” recalled Charles Scawthorn, a UC Berkeley researcher and engineer who first developed the emergency water supply concept back in 2011.

Scawthorn, who studies the behavior of mass fires that often follow earthquakes, developed his proposal at the time on behalf of the state’s Seismic Safety Commission.

“Water is your only solution,” to deal with all the fires that will break out in winds or earthquakes, he says. To deliver it, he envisioned a network of fixed pumping stations, capable of delivering thousands of gallons per minute of seawater through three-foot-diameter pipes running at the base of Los Angeles’ elaborate network of storm basins.

To tap that water, firefighters could rely on another innovation -- the portable water supply system pioneered in San Francisco back in the 1980s. That system is credited with delivering thousands of gallons per minute to douse the Marina District fire following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Retired SFFD Assistant Chief Frank Blackburn recalls that the system – which relies on portable hoses and hydrants -- saved the day when the city’s quake damaged water supply system went dry.

“We had a conflagration, and we were able to keep it to that one square block and extinguish the fire, prevent it from spreading,” he said. “You can't control the fire, so what you have to do is control around the edges of the fire to prevent the fire from spreading. But you got to have the water supply.”

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Not long after a massive fire struck in Malibu in 1996, Blackburn recalled, he went down and presented his portable system concept to Los Angeles and Malibu officials. He told them it could send water up to a mile away within just 30 minutes.

“We put a big demonstration on with the portable water system,” Blackburn said. “They liked everything we had but like anything else, they don't want to spend the money.”

“I think it would come in very handy for any place that's close to the ocean,” said Paul Grisanti, a former Malibu city councilman who has been studying ways to bolster its patchwork water supply system.

While Grisanti says he was never briefed on seawater supply systems, he likes the concept. But he’s also a member of the local fire brigade, and knows it could be a hard sell to fire crews.

“Fire companies are not going to do it,” he says, “as they know fire pumps are sophisticated metal devices and seawater is very corrosive.”

While he acknowledges his system does have limited range, Blackburn says rinsing rigs will prevent corrosion. And he can’t help but wonder whether things would have been different had the portable saltwater system he pitched three decades ago been set up in Palisades or Malibu.

“The fireboats could just anchor out right close offshore and supply all the water you need,” he said. “They are right next to the largest supply of water on the whole planet, the Pacific Ocean, and they have no way of accessing the water and using it to control fires anywhere.”

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