Before evacuating from her Malibu home the day the Palisades fire erupted, Cassandra Riera soaked the plants in her yard, moved flammable patio furniture inside and hooked up her private fire hydrant to two long hoses that she left coiled tightly on the ground.
Three years ago, she had spent $1,350 on the personal hydrant system and an additional $1,136 for a plumber to install it on the recommendation of her local fire brigade, which had noted that her side of the street didn’t have a public hydrant.
“It’s a very low cost relative to the cost of property up there — and the cost of lives,” said Riera, 54, an attorney. “You just have to be thinking about the risk of fire all the time.”
When she was allowed to return to Malibu, Riera found her house in the Big Rock neighborhood still standing, the hoses from her private hydrant scorched, ash-stained and left in a heap on the driveway. She believes her home, made of hardened fire-resistant materials, survived the initial blaze on its own before a neighbor who stayed behind used the hydrant to put out spot fires that had reignited on her property.
Many homes in Malibu’s Big Rock neighborhood burned in the Palisades fire.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The devastating firestorms across Southern California have sparked huge demand among affluent homeowners for private firefighters and fire protection products, both of which have been credited with saving some structures from the flames.
Homeowners said they were already being more proactive about fire preparedness as insurers in recent years dropped thousands of policies in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other fire-prone areas, triggering a crisis in the state’s home insurance market. Now, after scores of public hydrants in Pacific Palisades had little to no water flowing because of empty water storage tanks, they say they can’t count solely on city infrastructure to meet firefighting demands.
Companies that sell personal hydrants — less expensive than having a dedicated firefighting crew stationed outside and easy to install in advance — say sales have been booming all month.
“Yesterday, just in California alone, there were about 30 orders,” said Barry McConaghey, a former firefighter who owns FireHoseDirect, an equipment company he founded in 2011 that sells the parts to make a private hydrant.
Customers purchase what they need a la carte — a combination of jacket hoses, nozzles, valves and adapters that, when assembled, vastly increases the water flow rate from a homeowner’s outdoor faucet. Prices vary depending on hose length and other factors; the 10-piece private hydrant configuration recommended by the Corral Canyon Fire Safety Alliance totals $1,571 on FireHoseDirect’s website.
Homeowners who want to install a private hydrant purchase what they need a la carte — a combination of jacket hoses, nozzles, valves and adapters that, when assembled, vastly increases the water flow rate from a homeowner’s outdoor faucet.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Recent delivery addresses, McConaghey said as he pulled up the company’s purchase records, included Malibu, Westlake Village, Stevenson Ranch, San Clemente and San Diego, with several customers paying more for overnight shipping. “We see an uptick in sales when the wildfires take off,” he said.
Private fire hydrants are legal, and owners are responsible for maintaining them. They also pay for the water they use, whether they’re drawing from their own supply, such as a swimming pool or water tank, or tapping into the municipal water system.
“It’s your water, it’s behind your meter. If you want to run your sprinklers during a fire, you can,” said David Whitman, whose South Pasadena company, Brushfire Battle Systems, began selling private fire hydrants three years ago.
“If these hydrants were all over the place, people aren’t going to be using stupid garden hoses — they’re going to be getting out there with a one-and-a half-inch attack line and going to town out of a high-pressure little baby hydrant,” he said. “That’s a game changer.”
Homeowners can use private hydrants to pre-wet surfaces as a fire approaches, but experts say the actual firefighting should be left to trained professionals. The intention of the private systems is to lessen the distance between a home and a powerful, controlled water source.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Since Jan. 7, Whitman said, he has been up until midnight most nights filling orders for pool pumps powered by Honda engines, which he sells for $1,895 to $5,895, and for private hydrants.
“One-hundred percent I’ve never been this busy,” he said. “I’ve sold out, and I’m filling back orders as fast as I can. I just called my manufacturers today, and I have more pumps on a truck headed to Los Angeles as we speak.”
Rules governing the appearance and permitting of home hydrants vary by area, but in general they don’t resemble the squat mushroom-top hydrants that sit on sidewalks and other public spaces.
In Los Angeles County, private hydrants must be painted red to distinguish them from yellow public hydrants, and the 2023 city of Los Angeles fire code stipulates that a “specific action or project permit is required to install, alter or relocate any part of any fire hydrant on private property.”
Public fire hydrants are yellow, but private hydrants in Los Angeles County must be painted red.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“The rules are really centered around such appliances being readily visible and identifiable,” said Nathan Wittasek, a former firefighter who now works as a fire protection engineer and investigator in Los Angeles.
Private hydrants can be used by homeowners themselves, especially to wet surfaces as a fire approaches. But experts say the actual firefighting should be left to trained professionals, who will recognize the red-painted private hydrants and coiled-up hoses when they arrive on the scene.
The intention is to lessen the distance between a home and a powerful, controlled water source, Wittasek said.
“Public hydrants are often too far away to be effective,” he said. “The greater the distance, there’s a linear increase in time in the amount of effort it takes to bring water to the fire. But the fire, meanwhile, is growing exponentially. So you’re fighting a losing battle.”
Aerial view of a Pacific Palisades neighborhood ravaged by the Palisades fire.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
Private fire hydrants are quickly becoming a top-requested amenity among wealthy home buyers, said Aaron Kirman, founder of luxury brokerage Christie’s International Real Estate Southern California.
“I’ve had so many people call me about private fire hydrants,” he said. “Everyone’s asking me about it. It’s the new thing that everyone wants for security.”
Like any fire prevention measure, private hydrants are not a cure-all, especially in the extreme conditions faced by firefighters during the first days of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Malibu homeowner Cassandra Riera installed a private fire hydrant in 2022. After evacuating during the Palisades fire this month, she returned to her neighborhood to find her home still standing, the hoses from her private hydrant scorched and left in a heap on her driveway.
(Cassandra Riera)
But having a backup system in place is priceless, said Riera, the Malibu homeowner.
After the destructive 2018 Woolsey fire in the area, “we know we’re on our own — we can’t rely on the fire department to help us,” she said. “I’m now determined to put in a pond or pool with a remote pump system for next time.”