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Why Dumping Seawater on Blazes Isn’t the Answer to California’s Wildfire Problem

Firefighting planes are dumping water from the ocean on the Los Angeles fires, but using saltwater is typically a last resort.

Salt water corrodes firefighting equipment and may harm ecosystems, especially those like the chaparral shrublands around Los Angeles that aren’t normally exposed to seawater. As the rate of sea level rise accelerates, storms push seawater ever farther onto the dry land, eventually killing trees and creating ghost forests, a result of climate change that is widespread in the US and globally. We increased the exposure to 20 hours in June 2023, and the forest still appeared mostly unfazed, although the tulip poplar trees were drawing water from the soil more slowly, which may be an early warning signal.

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