Wildfire Preparedness Efforts by Water District 10

January 30, 2025

As the California wildfires continue to blaze its important to understand what your local leadership is doing to best prepare for wildfires in your community.  Over the past nine years, the District has immensely enhanced its infrastructure to improve fire safety and response capabilities, especially after the destructive fires in Bastrop and Steiner Ranch in 2011.

Water District 10 made significant strides in improving its fire flow capabilities by completing approximately 20 projects that focus on increasing pipe diameters across various areas in the District.  This initiative resulted in higher water availability, including increased water flow for firefighting efforts.  Additionally, the District has installed new fire hydrants every 500 feet in many locations, ensuring firefighters have quick access to water during emergencies.  The District now has approximately 650 fire hydrants within its boundaries.

A new pump station, operational since 2024, has augmented the water supply with an additional 300,000 gallons of storage, pushing the District’s storage capacity to 2.8 million gallons.

The District regularly conducts a thorough fire hydrant survey to identify necessary repairs, leading to an ongoing maintenance program to keep the system in optimal condition.

Recently, District staff took part in a Firewise Safety Planning session, hosted by the City of West Lake Hills and Emergency Services District 9.  This training involved virtual tabletop simulations to strategize effective communication and response during wildfire events, including evacuation route planning and resource allocation.  The peer-reviewed exercise immensely helped identify and address potential problems that could be encountered in an emergency situation, which is invaluable.  The City of West Lake Hills continues to meet regularly with local leadership keeping an open dialog to push community safety and needs.  This action has benefited the District staff by allowing a direct platform to fast track needs both immediate and future.

Currently, the District is in the design process to replace the system’s main water tank and to add an additional tank to further enhance storage capacity to meet peak demand, especially during fires.  Part of this process will include the need for the City of West Lake Hills to grant variances for this critical water system upgrade. The District expects installation of the tanks to begin in 2025. The additional tank will add 400,000 gallons of capacity for a total of 3.2 million gallons once in service.

Ongoing engineering efforts focus on meeting the community’s needs for water availability, reliability, and storage.  It is the steadfast commitment of the Travis County Water District 10 Board of Directors to continue implementing improvements that make sense within our community being mindful of its growth, drought conditions, and fire risks.

Residents are reminded not to activate irrigation systems during fires to preserve water flow for firefighting efforts.