This is probably going to be stupid, so plz be kind. When it rains heavily somewhere, do they store it for use later? And if so, why can’t they use it when there are bad wild fires?
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> When it rains heavily somewhere, do they store it for use later?
“They”? Who is “they”? Water does get stored in some locations in things like lakes formed by dams, something often called “reservoirs”. Usually these are for supplying municipal water systems or for power generation, not specifically forest fires. But I suppose they could be used for such a purpose.
> And if so, why can’t they use it when there are bad wild fires?
They could in concept. The problem is that forest fires are in forests and the reservoirs are not. Getting the water to the fire is the tricky part, and extinguishing an entire forest requires way more water than a fire truck can carry. Or even a whole fleet of fire trucks. Instead sometimes forest fires are fought by using aircraft to scoop up water from lakes and reservoirs to dump on the fires, or fire trucks can be used in critical areas to control small parts of the forest fire.
Overall though the problem is usually not “there is no water” but instead “the water isn’t where it is needed to put out the fire, in the massive volumes required”.
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