Weak water pressure blamed for loss of 3 to 5 homes in Yorba Linda

Orange County fire officials today blamed lack of water pressure for the loss of three to five homes when a blaze ripped through the Hidden Hills Estates area of Yorba Linda on Saturday.

Orange County Fire Authority Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion said firefighters were forced to abandon the upper portion of the high-end neighborhood next to Chino Hills State Park because no water came out of fire hydrants.

"They decided to fight the fire where they had water," he said, explaining why strike teams headed for lower ground.

The Freeway Complex fire destroyed 192 homes and damaged another 123 over the weekend when it tore through three counties, according to the latest figures from the Orange County Fire Authority. The hillside areas of Yorba Linda sustained the most damage.

Yorba Linda Water District officials continued to face heavy criticism today from Hidden Hills Estates residents, who said they have complained about water pressure problems for years.

"It’s a joke up there: don’t have your sprinklers going when you’re taking a shower," said Larry Goodnough, who like some residents was able to save his home by filling up buckets of water from a backyard pool. "I’m bitter. You can’t blame the firemen. If there’s no water, you can’t fight the fire."

At least 19 homes were damaged or destroyed when the fire hit the neighborhood Saturday afternoon, water district officials said. They have insisted that no distribution system is capable of sustaining the water demands of such an intense and widespread fire.

"The problem here wasn’t too little water, it was too much fire," Assistant General Manager Ken Vecchiarelli said at a special board meeting this week. But Vecchiarelli also acknowledged this week that the Hidden Hills area had low water pressure problems for at least several months before the fire and that the agency had sent letters to residents to notify them.

--Tony Barboza (e-mail the reporter with tips at tony.barboza@latimes.com).

Photo: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Priss]

Why didn't they use that wonderful Barricade Gel at all this time? I heard no mention of it being used this and I'm disappointed, because homes could've been saved.
It was used last year and one man claimed when he sprayed it on with the approaching fire and flames, his home was the only one on his block that didn't burn down.
Instead people waited for the fire and didn't do anything to prevent their homes from burning down. This doesn't make any sense to me?!!
BarricadeGel .com has a website to buy this product and it isn't that expensive either. Did people just forget about this?

[Priss]

Did everyone forget about BARRICADE GEL??? It's sprayed on a home with a regular water faucet or a swimming pools water. It lasts for up to 12 hours after it's applied and will prevent the fire's flames from burning. It can be bought on their website BarricadeGel, it isn't that expensive and will save homes form burning down.

[Priss]

BARRICADE GEL FOLKS WOULD HAVE WORKED.

[the truth]

3-5 homes means 20-30 homes, if not more.

[E Zunino]

These comments come from someone who also lives in a fire-prone area.

1. The Hydrant system is independent of the house water system. As far as I know, it has to be checked regularly and maintained. Neighbors complaining to one another or a few letters to city government is not the same as an organized neighborhood meeting with representatives of your local water provider and invitations to mayor/council, the Fire Department and, most importantly, the press including TV.

2. Local reservoir capacity is very important. During our last big fire, the wooden roofs of the older reservoirs caught fire and caved in. By-by water. It just occured to me that, while new homes have been built in adjacent canyons here, no new reservoirs have been built. Uhmmm..... Maybe it's time a whole lot of us in the Urban-Wildland Interface started asking some questions about water availability.

3. If you have a pool, invest in a good pump and hoses. All fire departments recommend it. Few homeowners seem to want to spend a couple hundred dollars for the extra protection.

4. Homes in the middle of a development are safer than those at the edges. If you live at an edge, you'll get the full blast of embers. Close up all the exterior nooks and crannies.

5. We live in a high risk area. Fires and mudflows destroy homes. We can only minimize risk and damage, not eliminate it. Living where we do demands vigilance including keeping an eye on those things that can be ignored elsewhere like the hydrant system.

[Peter Sokoloff]

Why hasn't the fire department insisted that the Yorba Linda Water District install "break tanks" in areas where water pressure is low. Break tanks are stand by fire water tanks installed in areas just in case the main water line breaks or if pressure is known to be insufficient in certain geographic locations. The fire department just hooks up the pumps on their trucks and sucks the stand by water out of the break tank(s). It just seems like a logical precaution to take in high fire danger neigborhoods.

[soo yoo]

water pressure? I thought the fire was to blame.

[ken6000]

As an architect, I have had clients required to spend over a hundred thousand dollars in similar hillside areas to install addtional fire hydrants, water lines and so forth specifically to facilitate fighting wildfires. East YL is an area developed in the last 30 years, benefiting from modern fire protection technology. This is an unconscionable lapse in readiness by YLWD. The area is an obvious WUI area, is high on a hill, and has multi-million dollar homes... not to mention it is squarely in a historic fire corridor. Fires of this nature are not uncommon in that region. There simply is no excuse for dry hydrants in such a high fire hazard area, ever.

[the truth]

bottom line: someone approved homes being built immediately adjacent to a 14,000 acre wildland preserve, one that consists of very high fire fuel (oaks and grasses). next, people made the conscious decision to live in this extremely high fire danger environment. water pressure was not going to save homes in the conditions as they presented that day.

that community should've never been built there.