Sending best wishes to all those affected by the fires in LA area

[engine]

The pictures coming out of LA are horrific.

I hope you're safe.

I'm sending my best wishes to all those affected.

[not2easy]

Hoping they can get the fires under control. Stay safe.

[Mark_A]

I am seeing discussion that there isn't enough water to fight the fires properly. May be a stupid question & I am sure it has been thought of but what about all that salt water at the coast? Any reason they can't use water from the sea?

Best wishes to everyone caught up in it.

[phranque]

the pressure in the hydrants comes from a large steel tank up the hill from each of the developments in Pacific Palisades.
the water problem occurs when instead of using that tank to water the development's lawns and take showers, etc and perhaps put out a couple of house fires, it's being used to put out hundreds of house fires as well as a wildfire and in addition some people leaving the neighborhood in a hurry probably backed over a fire hydrant.
a lot of people left their lawn irrigation running in hopes that it would save the house.
if you had the means to get seawater from sea level pumped all the way up that hill you could just as well refill that tank with fresh water from the reservoir.
lots of creosote-coated power line poles burned and fell which means that the power is out everywhere so there's no electricity to pump water up the hill.

[tangor]

Any reason they can't use water from the sea?

Plenty! Adverse for plants, corrosion of infrastructure (pipes, cabling, paving etc.), among other things. Proactive land/forestry management might have mitigated some of the dangers but that wasn't done. Also, some of this appears to be arson in addition to the natural, and one hopes those are held responsible!

Meanwhile, a lot of folks are in a world of hurt and need all the help they can get. Prayers help, but working hands get more done. Kudos to those already pitching in!

[thecoalman]

Any reason they can't use water from the sea?

You would have to pump it uphill, the further and higher you need to pump it requires ever bigger pumps. That's besides the issues with corrosion. It would be impossibly impractical, might be consideration for someone living on the coast to personally buy their own pump. If anything invest in pumps for fresh water, see below.

From my understanding in the Palisades area they have a 130 million gallon reservoir and three 1 million gallon tanks . Normally the reservoir replenishes the tanks through gravity. The reservoir has this enormous cover to prevent debris from getting into but it developed a tear, it was drained many months ago for a repair that should not of taken that long. The comment I heard from someone who operates a similar facility was it should of been a few weeks tops. Without the reservoir they need to pump water into the tanks. The pumps are only enough to meet the basic daily demands. Between homeowners using garden hoses, firefighters hooking into fire hydrants and water loss to damaged plumbing in houses those tanks were quickly drained because they had no chance of the pumps keeping up.

[lucy24]

Any reason they can't use water from the sea?

The sea is, as its name suggests, at sea level. The fires are not.

[phranque]

i have seen video of the Super Scoopers getting water out of Santa Monica Bay but that certainly was not possible on January 7th when there were strong offshore winds.

btw don't make any plans to plant any landscaping after the soil has experienced a salt water drop...