LOS ANGELES — After losing dozens of oak trees, a guest house and a garage filled with mementos of her late husband in the 2018 Woolsey fire, Nicole Radoumis dreads the arrival of extreme fire weather amid a punishing California drought.
Recently however, the Agoura Hills resident grew even more apprehensive after the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California imposed strict one-day a week outdoor watering restrictions for areas that rely on water from the depleted State Water Project. Radoumis now worries that her two-acre property will be filled with dead, tinder-dry vegetation that will serve as fuel for wildfires.
In a city that falls almost entirely within a very high fire hazard severity zone, Radoumis and her neighbors argue that the watering restrictions could place their homes — and lives — at increased peril.
