California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of wildfire-related bills on Sept. 29, one of which bars lawsuits against public water systems over failures to maintain water supply or pressure during a wildfire. The signing took place in the presence of firefighters, and Newsom’s office described the package as supporting “new tools to prevent and fight wildfires.”
One of the bills, SB 1153, authored by Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Merced), is described in the governor’s announcement as addressing “disaster preparedness: urban retail water suppliers and public water systems: wildfire.” The text of the bill states that neither an urban retail water supplier’s failure to implement or comply with certain preparedness actions, nor a public water system’s inability to maintain water supply or water pressure during a wildfire, shall be considered a substantial cause of damages resulting from that wildfire.
The law arrives as residents of Pacific Palisades, the Los Angeles neighborhood destroyed by wildfire earlier this year, pursue lawsuits against the City of Los Angeles and the State of California. Those suits center in part on an empty city reservoir in the Palisades, which residents argue deprived firefighters of a water source during the blaze.
Documentary filmmaker Gabriel Mann, whose work covers wildfire and wildland firefighting, has written in support of that argument. According to Mann, the reservoir has a helispot, and because it was offline, helicopters that were the first resources on scene had to fly miles away to reload with water. He wrote that the delay cost firefighters “over 6 additional hours outside the fire zone to find water” at a point when the fire was still small and manageable.
Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, has also publicly criticized the new law.
SB 1153 was signed alongside other wildfire-related legislation and touted publicly by the governor’s office as part of a broader safety push, even as the liability shield for water systems takes effect while the Palisades litigation over water availability during the fire remains unresolved in court.
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