The Los Angeles Fire Department did not inform the city’s Department of Water and Power until mid-February that more than 1,000 fire hydrants needed repairs, despite being aware of the issues months before.
According to city records and officials, the Fire Department discovered the damage to the hydrants during inspections in the months prior to the Jan. 7 Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes.
While firefighters struggled with low water pressure during the blaze, it’s unclear whether the damaged hydrants played a role.
The lapse in sharing inspection records came to light Feb. 12, when KCBS-TV reported that LAFD had compiled a list of 1,350 fire hydrants requiring repairs. Some of those repairs appear to have been flagged as early as January 2024, according to the list, which the station obtained from LAFD through a public records request.
Inside DWP, the KCBS report was met with surprise and alarm.
DWP relies on LAFD to conduct annual inspections of the city’s roughly 66,000 fire hydrants. In August, DWP had received an annual report from LAFD documenting the status of the city’s hydrants, but none were flagged as requiring repairs, according to Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and general manager of DWP.
Since the Palisades fire, DWP had repeatedly stated that it had no pending reports of damaged hydrants. Only on Feb. 14 — after the KCBS report — did DWP receive a listing of damaged hydrants, Quiñones said.
“The report we received on [Feb. 14] was completely different than the report we received in August,” Quiñones said this week at a meeting of the Board of Power and Water Commissioners. “That was the first time we saw the ‘needs repair.’”
“Any assertion that LADWP received information [about damage] and didn’t do anything regarding the hydrants is incorrect,” added Anselmo Collins, chief of DWP’s water operations, at the board meeting.
The episode marks yet another problem at the city’s Fire Department in the wake of the Palisades fire, and comes as former LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley seeks to overturn Mayor Karen Bass’ decision to terminate her.
As reasons for firing Crowley, Bass cited her failure to pre-deploy firefighters before the Palisades fire and her refusal to complete an after-action report about the deadly blaze.
LAFD did not respond to questions about the fire hydrant inspections process. A spokesperson for Crowley did not return calls or respond to questions.
Although DWP owns and is responsible for maintaining the city’s fire hydrants, the task of inspecting them falls to LAFD. Each year, the utility pays the Fire Department about $2.5 million — drawn from ratepayer revenue — to carry out the inspections and report the findings.
In years past, the number of hydrants needing repairs has varied significantly, said Collins, the water operations chief.
“In 2021, we got only five hydrants that needed to be repaired. In 2022, we got 375,” Collins said at this week’s board meeting. “So it’s a huge fluctuation, and it all depends on what the Fire Department is finding when they are doing their inspections.”
The list that DWP provided in August included 66,000 fire hydrants, their locations, and whether they were owned by DWP or by a private party. It did not detail damage or repairs but instead categorized about 40% of the hydrants as “needs inspection.”
After KCBS reported on 1,350 hydrants classified as needing repairs, DWP pressed to receive the information.
“This idea that somehow there were 1,350 hydrants was completely news to us,” said Joe Ramallo, chief of communications and customer service for DWP.
DWP received the list on Feb. 14 showing the damaged hydrants, with a separate column detailing the repairs needed. More than 120 were listed as “dry.” Some had broken valves, and others had a bent, tight or otherwise damaged stem. More than 100 were leaking, while a handful were blocked by vegetation.
Not all of the hydrants on the list are under DWP’s purview. About 100 of them are private hydrants whose repairs are to be performed by property owners. And dozens were obstructed by homeless people or encampments, so their status was unclear.
As of Tuesday, DWP said it had fixed about 200 of the hydrants.
At the DWP board meeting, Ramallo suggested that LAFD still hadn’t provided an explanation for what happened.
“We still don’t have a clear idea, other than we received this list after [Quiñones] had reached out directly and said, ‘Please provide whatever you have, because at no point in time was that communicated to the department,’” Ramallo said.
Nurit Katz, a commissioner appointed by the mayor, said that LAFD should provide its inspection reports that are “more frequent than annual.”
“It seems like getting a thousand repairs all at once is not that helpful for our teams in terms of ensuring that they’re done,” Katz said.
Quiñones said she was working with LAFD interim Chief Ronnie Villanueva on a new “quality control” process “so that we don’t have missteps like this in the future.”
“The ultimate goal is that we have working fire hydrants in the city, and that’s what we should all strive to,” she said.
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