The LAPD said in a new after-action report that officers rushed into neighborhoods as the Palisades Fire exploded on Jan. 7 to help with evacuations and traffic control, but some of the initial response was hampered by road congestion, communications difficulties, and a lack of coordination with firefighters.
The 92-page report made public this week identified a number of issues that the LAPD said need to be addressed before the City is confronted with another major emergency, including improving communications equipment to insure two-way radios will function in all areas during a disaster, rehearsing mock incidents alongside Fire or other departments, and training commanders on how to manage a large-scale emergencies.
“The Palisades Fire was a once in a lifetime cataclysmic event,” the report authors wrote. “The combination of extreme wind, dry conditions, unique topography, and the intricate design of roadways made it extremely difficult for first responders to save lives and protect property.”
“Despite those challenges, this report found that the LAPD took swift and decisive action to protect Palisades’ residents,” it said.
A single patrol officer happened to be in the Palisades when the first reports of the fire were being called-in and firefighters dispatched, the report said. That officer immediately drove towards the smoke, helped with evacuations, and called dispatchers to request more help.
Motorcycle officers, who happened to be nearby in West LA on the Presidential protective detail, were sent to the fire area to aid with evacuations and traffic control, though the response of more officers from the West LA station were slowed because streets were jammed with cars.
The report said it was a group of LAPD officers on Sunset Boulevard at around 1:00 p.m. who told evacuating residents stuck in gridlocked traffic to abandon their cars and flee on foot.
“This decision was justified,” the report said, when some of the stopped cars began to catch fire, as flames descended hillsides on both sides of the street. About 350 cars were abandoned during the evacuations.
The report said there was some wasted time and confusion during the first hours of the fire as 911 callers reported people trapped in homes, and when officers went to the addresses they discovered the neighborhoods had been evacuated hours earlier.
The report writers said that relatives of the Palisades residents, unable to reach family members because cell towers were offline, were the people calling 911, not the Palisades residents themselves.
The LAPD said a key City communications relay tower, the Green Mountain repeater site, was shut down during the fire, forcing some officers to use cellphones to try to communicate.
Many cell towers went offline or were destroyed, further complicating the ability of dispatchers and incident commanders to get information or instructions to officers in the Palisades neighborhoods.
The report recommended improving two-way radio coverage and reliability in the Palisades, and consider changing or adding cellular providers.
The authors said LAPD commanders from all parts of the City should be required to participate in annual training exercises with LAFD and learn how to jointly manage large-scale emergencies.