Thanks for sharing. I have some thoughts but I wasn't there or have ever visited but I am familiar with fire events. Even though I am not an expert and I wasn't there, remarkably I still have opinions.
I think what is important to remember is that this was a wind-driven event, which you have alluded to already. The fire was almost secondary to the wind. Once this fire reached a certain size, the game was over. Every firefighter has been to "the big one" where the only reason the fire went out is because the fire exhausted the fuel, there was nothing left to burn. The only thing you can do at that point is try to save exposures, buildings on the periphery. That is probably why the FD repositioned and seemingly abandoned certain parts of the city. These homes (most) on the forward edge were going to burn regardless of what they did or did not do.
I say this to assure you that your home was probably lost well before any fire reached it, and if you had been there not only would your house still have burned but you could have died too. I can't say that with dead certainty, but most likely. If a trained fire dept. with PPE and trucks capable of flowing thousands of gallons per minute couldn't get it done than you standing there in 80mph winds with a garden hose in your hand with no respiratory or thermal protection is unlikely to have ended well. Assuming you would have had water anyway or enough pressure to actually flow with effectiveness.
That is the other issue. Assuming the empty reservoir had been full the fire dept. would still have had empty hydrants because every section of the water grid was being robbed because of the extent of the fire. There is only so much capacity and with a modern fire engine capable of flowing 1,500 gallons per minute at static ( they can flow much more) it doesn't take long to exhaust water reserves or the capability of the system to deliver enough water regardless of reserve. I don't know if most people are fully aware of water capacity in their city.
There's reports the initial response took 25 minutes which allowed the fire to grow. Who knows if totally true but that could have been a game changer if the FD could have gotten to it while small. Something to note if the truth ever becomes clear. The calls for pre-staging seem completely legit on this one.
Also, it appears most homes that burned had vegetation next to the house and vents in the eaves that allowed wind driven embers into the house to start a fire. Or they were so close to another burning home the thermal radiation ignited other structures. And the palm trees were virtual torches that spread embers everywhere. The homes that survived seem to have been either lucky, such as the two houses that were protected by the first home on your street or they had features that kept the embers from trapping against the house and igniting their homes. I would love to know your thoughts on these internet observations.
The son of my mother's visiting nurse also lost his house in Altadena. One thing that is going to become increasingly obvious as the polycrises develop is that wherever we choose to locate ourselves or our households, the increasingly interconnected world we live in doesn't allow for very much true isolation from down-chain effects. Yet, it seems that we are also suffering from an epidemic of loneliness due to social isolation. Stuff keeps changing and we don't quite know how to rearrange ourselves. 
