"There's lots of conversations about California water policy and how we allocate water to protect fish or ecosystems versus deliver water to different kinds of users, but that had no role whatsoever to play in water availability for firefighting," Gleick said.
Southern California reservoirs are at above-average levels for this time of year because of two plentiful rainy seasons, he added.
"Misinformation about how if we just had more water from Northern California in Southern California, that would have made the difference, that's not true," UCLA's Pierce said. "Even if you have water stored fairly close by in the region, you can't just move it quickly up to an area like the Palisades."