Fire And Water: The Role Of Water Utilities In Facing Wildfire Threats
By Jared Lewis
Summertime in California brings a familiar sense of unease for many residents, as it marks the onset of wildfire season. In recent years, the state has endured some of its most severe fires on record. To date, CAL FIRE reports 17 active wildfires across the state, including the Park Fire, which has already consumed around 430,000 acres across four counties and damaged or destroyed nearly 700 structures.
While the role of water in combating wildfires is well-known, the impact of these fires on our water supply and systems is less understood.
The Link Between Wildfires And Water Risks
A recent interactive report by The Washington Post sheds light on the “new megafire era” and its profound effects on water supplies. Wildfires not only cause immediate damage but also lead to long-term contamination and destruction of water infrastructure. Approximately one in six Americans live in areas at high risk of wildfires, with one in five residing in California. Over the past 20 years, fires have scorched more than 20 million acres in the state, endangering water supply for over 11 million people. Moreover, the impact of a burned watershed extends from forests to water treatment plants and can eventually affect entire communities and households.
The Crucial Role Of Water Utilities
Water utilities are at the forefront of mitigating these threats. Their responsibilities include science-based watershed management, emergency preparedness for water treatment and delivery, and fostering community partnerships to support wildfire prevention and mitigation.
Proactive Measures In Action
As a program manager for one of the region’s largest water utilities (San Jose Water), I work closely with our team and collaborators to protect supply for over a million Santa Clara County residents. In addition to our broader service area in Santa Clara County, we also serve the densely populated southern end of Silicon Valley. Our service area also extends into the remote and forested Santa Cruz Mountains region. Here, we manage 6,200 acres of watershed land, including two reservoirs, and a network of raw water intakes and treatment plants, all situated in high or very high Fire Hazard Severity Zones. This critical portion of our service area highlights the significant risk that wildfires pose to drinking water quality and availability. Understandably, minimizing wildfire risk is a central focus of our operations and emergency management strategy.
As such, our efforts to mitigate the potential for wildfire and impacts to water supply include a number of key partnerships and initiatives. Most notably, our Forest Health Program and Community Wildfire Program both focused on enhancing watershed and system resilience to wildfire. Likewise, our participation in the Los Gatos Creek Watershed Collaborative — a major regional forest health initiative — helps to reduce wildfire hazards and risk, supports source water quality, and maintains ecosystem health.
These integrated programs work together to protect water resources while ensuring that they remain a reliable and clean source for the communities we serve.
Enhancing Wildfire Preparedness And Infrastructure Protection
At the same time, recent advancements in technology are significantly improving our wildfire preparedness and response capability and safeguarding critical infrastructure. In partnership with the Santa Clara County FireSafe Council, we have implemented an AI-powered network of solar-equipped sensors. These sensors monitor air temperature and particulates to deliver precise, real-time alerts. This cutting-edge sensor technology is strategically deployed across our utility’s watershed areas to detect potential ignition sources, notify fire agencies promptly, and prevent fires that could compromise source water quality and damage our distribution systems in these vulnerable regions. These innovative mitigation strategies are crucial for managing elevated risk in the Wildland Urban Intermix.
In addition to our robust network of wildfire sensors, all assets and infrastructure in wildfire-prone areas are integrated into our utility’s comprehensive SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system. This system, which operates around the clock, ensures safe operations and efficient fire flow management, with support from a dedicated emergency backup system. Our SCADA system manages over 50,000 data points collected from various sites 24/7, encompassing 2,400 miles of main pipelines, more than 300 boosters, pumps, and wells, over 100 treated water reservoirs, and approximately 230,000 service connections. This extensive network delivers 36.2 billion gallons of water annually to nearly one million customers.
Building Resilience
Wildfires are an important component of forest and watershed ecosystems in California and the Western U.S. In fact, fire has played a key role in the maintenance of these systems. But our modern landscapes and fuel environments are remarkably different from their historic analogs. This has required new approaches to forest management and wildfire mitigation to reflect these differences, while recognizing the fundamental role of fire in these “natural” environments.
Water utilities are uniquely challenged to proactively prepare, collaborate, and adapt to reduce the impact of high-intensity wildfires and mitigate their threats, particularly to drinking water supplies. By embracing advancements in technology and communication and fostering resilience, water utilities can increase protections for communities, infrastructure, and supply from the growing risks of wildfire in California.
Jared Lewis is the Environmental Planning and Natural Resources Manager at San Jose Water.