Here is why California can’t use ocean water to help fight the wildfires Salt water can wreck a fire, but it can also wreck equipment and vegetation as well.
When salt water is dumped in large quantities on a fire, that salt has to go somewhere — typically, into the ground, or it's washed into nearby bodies of water.
Raising soil salinity — the salt content of an area's soil — makes it harder for plants to draw water and nutrients from the soil via osmosis.
Salt can also make the soil toxic, hamper seedling growth and harm the general permeability — how easily water and nutrients can move through the earth — of the soil.
Salt is corrosive, and it can damage metal equipment, including critical equipment in water dumping planes and fire pumps.
