100+ Fire Hydrants in Malibu Aren't Being Maintained, New Survey Shows
In one case, a fire hydrant in Charmlee Park was filled with rocks.
Holly Bieler · September 10, 2026 · Malibu
When Malibu's fire safety staff got around to testing the three hydrants at Charmlee Wilderness Park this summer, one of the hydrants wouldn't give up a drop of water. Pulling the cap off and cranking open the valve, city staff discovered a shocking site.
"The hydrant was just chock full of rocks," a city fire safety liaison told the Public Safety Commission last week. "Nothing came out."
It’s one of several unsettling findings detailed in a yearlong survey of the city’s private fire hydrants. Launched in the days after the Palisades Fire and released publicly last week, the report found at least a hundred hydrants in the city weren’t being normally tested or maintained.
"People think the fire and water departments do all the maintenance and testing of fire hydrants," the liaison said. “Not always.”
It’s a problem most Malibu residents won’t face. Of the 1,600 or so fire hydrants in Malibu, only 150 of them sit on private land. Located in condo complexes, on school campuses and at shopping centers testing and maintaining those hydrants, with an [annual inspection and flow test](https://riversideca.gov/fire/sites/riversideca.gov.fire/files/fire/pdf/2020/resources-forms/D11006.pdf), is up to the owner.
The city found only about 50 of them, were doing so.
In most cases, the survey reported, private owners weren't being purposefully negligent. They simply had no idea they were responsible for testing and maintaining their own hydrants.
"People were like, '"Wait, I have to do that?'" the liaison said.
It might sound like an unlikely excuse to some. Not the city. Indeed the report seemed to indicate the complicated chains of custody which govern Malibu’s fire hydrants were to blame for breakdowns on the government level as well.
Maintenance of fire hydrants on government land is separated among county, city and state officials, and based on a variety of factors, including which mains have right-of-way and the infrastructure of service lines. In one public park, the city might be in charge of maintaining a fire hydrant, and the parks department another nearby. Confusion over that jurisdiction can lead to hydrants falling through the cracks, as appears to be the case with the rock-filled one at Charmlee.
The safety liaison said the survey had thus far yielded results. Of the 100 or so private owners whom surveyors found weren’t maintaining or testing their hydrants, almost all have subsequently scheduled inspections, he said.