In recent years, fires have begun revealing a hidden vulnerability: our urban water systems. While water utilities are built to support drinking needs and firefighting in neighborhoods, most have not been designed or enabled to respond to large wildland-urban fire events.

That gap became starkly clear in the January 2025 Los Angeles fires, when events and new, politicized narratives raised expectations regarding damaged water infrastructure, threatened water quality, and increased the strain on utilities as they scrambled to support fire response. Our experts are closing that gap by bringing focused research, policy coordination, and community engagement to the intersection of water resilience and fire risk. We are catalyzing new research and cross-sector collaboration, while providing water managers, policymakers, and communities with guidance and tools to better prepare for fire’s impacts.