Pacific Palisades had been burning for less than two hours when word raced through the ranks of the Los Angeles Fire Department that the agency\u2019s leaders had failed to pre-deploy any extra engines and crews to the area, despite warnings of life-threatening winds.<\/p>\n
In the days after the fire broke out, and as thousands of homes and business continued to go up in flames, then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said little about the lack of pre-deployment, which was first disclosed by The Times<\/a>, instead blaming those high winds, along with a shortage of working engines<\/a> and money, for her agency\u2019s failure to quickly knock down the blaze. <\/p>\n Crowley\u2019s comments did not stand up to scrutiny. To several former LAFD chief officers as well as to people who lost everything in the disaster, her focus on equipment and City Hall finances marked the beginning of an ongoing campaign of secrecy and deflection by the department<\/a> \u2014 all designed to avoid taking full responsibility for what went wrong in the preparations for and response to the Jan. 7 fire, which killed 12 people and leveled much of the Palisades and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ve acknowledged that they\u2019ve made mistakes yet, and that\u2019s really a problem,\u201d said Sue Pascoe, editor of the local publication Circling the News, who lost her home of 30 years. \u201cThey\u2019re still trying to cover up \u2026 It\u2019s not the regular firefighters. It\u2019s coming from higher up.\u201d<\/p>\n With the first anniversary of the fire a week away, questions about missteps in the firefight remained largely unanswered by the LAFD and Mayor Karen Bass. Among them: Why were crews ordered to leave the still-smoldering scar<\/a> of an earlier blaze that would reignite into the Palisades inferno? Why did the LAFD alter its after-action report<\/a> on the fire in a way that appeared intended to shield it from criticism?<\/p>\n The city also has yet to release the mayor\u2019s communications about the after-action report. The Times requested the communications last month, and the report \u2014 which was meant to pinpoint failures and enumerate lessons learned, to avoid repeating mistakes \u2014 was issued in early October. Nor has the city fulfilled a records request from The Times about the whereabouts of fire engines in the Palisades when the first 911 call came in. It took the first crews about 20 minutes<\/a> to reach the scene, by which time the fierce winds were driving the flames toward homes.<\/p>\n A Bass spokesperson has said that the mayor did not demand changes to the after-action report, noting that she pushed for its creation and that it was written and edited by the LAFD. <\/p>\n \u201cThis administration is only interested in the full truth about what happened before, during, and after the fire,\u201d the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said earlier this month.<\/p>\n The LAFD has stopped granting interviews or answering questions from The Times about the matter, vaguely citing federal court proceedings. David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, said that the federal prosecution of a man accused of starting the earlier blaze does not preclude the department from discussing its actions surrounding both fires.<\/p>\n In a December television interview<\/a>, Fire Chief Jaime Moore acknowledged that some residents don\u2019t trust his agency and said his mandate from Bass was to \u201chelp guide and rebuild the Los Angeles Fire Department to the credibility that we\u2019ve always had.\u201d <\/p>\n The Lachman fire<\/p>\n Shortly after midnight on New Year\u2019s Day, a man watched flames spread in the distant hills and called 911.<\/p>\n \u201cVery top of Lachman, is where we are,\u201d he told the dispatcher. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty small, but it\u2019s still at the very top and it\u2019s growing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHelp is on the way,\u201d the dispatcher said.<\/p>\n A few hours later, at 4:46 a.m., the LAFD announced that the blaze<\/a>, which later became known as the Lachman fire, was fully contained at eight acres.<\/p>\n Top fire commanders soon made plans to finish mopping up the scene and to leave with their equipment, according to text messages obtained by The Times through a state Public Records Act request.<\/p>\n \u201cI imagine it might take all day to get that hose off the hill,\u201d LAFD Chief Deputy Phillip Fligiel said in a group chat. \u201cMake sure that plan is coordinated.\u201d<\/p>\n Firefighters who returned the next day complained to Battalion Chief Mario Garcia<\/a> that the ground was still smoldering and rocks still felt hot to the touch, according to private text messages from three firefighters to a third party that were reviewed by The Times. But Garcia ordered them to roll up their hoses and leave. <\/p>\n At 1:35 p.m., Garcia texted Fligiel and Chief Deputy Joseph Everett: \u201cAll hose and equipment has been picked up.\u201d<\/p>\n Five days after that, on the morning of Jan. 7, an LAFD captain called Fire Station 23 with an urgent message: The Lachman fire had started up again.<\/p>\n LAFD officials were emphatic early on that the Lachman fire was fully extinguished. But both inside and outside the department, many were certain it had rekindled.<\/p>\n \u201cWe won\u2019t leave a fire that has any hot spots,\u201d Crowley said at a community meeting in mid-January.<\/p>\n \u201cThat fire was dead out,\u201d Everett said at the same meeting, adding that he was out of town but communicating with the incident commander. \u201cIf it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n The department kept under wraps<\/a> the complaints of the firefighters who were ordered to leave the burn site. The Times disclosed them in a story in late October. In June, LAFD Battalion Chief Nick Ferrari had told a high-ranking fire official who works for a different agency in the L.A. region that LAFD officials knew about the firefighters\u2019 complaints, The Times also reported.<\/p>\n Bass has directed Moore, an LAFD veteran who took charge of the department in November, to commission an \u201cindependent\u201d investigation<\/a> of the Lachman fire mop-up. The after-action report contained only a brief mention of the earlier fire.<\/p>\n No pre-deployment<\/p>\n The afternoon before hazardous weather is expected, LAFD officials are typically briefed by the National Weather Service, using that information to decide where to position firefighters and engines the following morning.<\/p>\n The weather service had been sounding the alarm about critical fire weather for days. \u201cHEADS UP!!!\u201d NWS Los Angeles posted on X the morning of Jan. 6. \u201cA LIFE-THREATENING, DESTRUCTIVE\u201d windstorm was coming.<\/p>\n It hadn\u2019t rained much in months, and wind gusts were expected to reach 80 mph. The so-called burning index \u2014 a measure of the wildfire threat \u2014 was off the charts. Anything beyond 162 is considered \u201cextreme,\u201d and the figure for that Tuesday was 268.<\/p>\n In the past, the LAFD readied for powerful windstorms by pre-deploying large numbers of engines and crews<\/a> to the areas most at risk for wildfires and, in some cases, requiring a previous shift of hundreds of firefighters to stay for a second shift \u2014 incurring large overtime costs \u2014 to ensure there were enough personnel positioned to attack a major blaze.<\/p>\n None of that happened in the Palisades, with its hilly terrain covered in bone-dry brush, even though the weather service had flagged it as one of the regions at \u201cextreme risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Without pre-deployment, just 18 firefighters are typically on duty in the Palisades.<\/p>\n LAFD commanders decided to staff only five of the more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force citywide. Because they didn\u2019t hold over the outgoing shift, they staffed the extra engines with firefighters who volunteered for the job \u2014 only enough to operate three of the five engines.<\/p>\n On Jan. 6, officials decided to pre-deploy just nine engines to high-risk areas, adding eight more the following morning. None of them were sent to the Palisades.<\/p>\n The Times learned from sources of the decision to forgo a pre-deployment operation in the Palisades. LAFD officials were mum about the inadequate staffing until after The Times obtained internal records from a source in January that described the department\u2019s pre-deployment rollout.<\/p>\n The officials then defended their actions in interviews. Bass cited the LAFD\u2019s failure to hold over the previous shift of firefighters as a reason she removed Crowley as chief<\/a> less than two months after the fire. <\/p>\n The after-action report<\/p>\n In March, a working group was formed inside the LAFD to prepare the Palisades fire after-action report. A fire captain who was recommended for the group sought to make sure its members would have the freedom to follow the facts wherever they led, according to internal emails the city released in response to a records request by an unidentified party.<\/p>\n \u201cI am concerned about interference from outside entities that may attempt to influence the direction our report takes,\u201d Capt. Harold Kim wrote to Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, who was leading the review. \u201cI would like to ensure that the report that we painstakingly generate be published as is, to as reasonable an extent as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n He worried about revisions, saying that once LAFD labor unions and others \u201care done with many publications, they become unrecognizable to the authors.\u201d <\/p>\n Cook, who had been involved with review teams for more than a decade and written numerous reports, replied: \u201cI can assure you that I have never allowed for any of our documents to be altered in any way by the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n Other emails suggest that Kim ultimately remained in the group.<\/p>\n As the report got closer to completion, LAFD officials, worried about how it would be received, privately formed a second group for \u201ccrisis management\u201d \u2014 a decision that surfaced through internal emails released through another records request by an unidentified party.<\/p>\n \u201cThe primary goal of this workgroup is to collaboratively manage communications for any critical public relations issue that may arise. The immediate and most pressing crisis is the Palisades After Action Report,\u201d LAFD Assistant Chief Kairi Brown wrote in an email to eight others, including interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva.<\/p>\n \u201cWith significant interest from media, politicians, and the community, it is crucial that we present a unified response to anticipated questions and concerns,\u201d Brown wrote. \u201cBy doing so, we can ensure our messaging is clear and consistent, allowing us to create our own narrative rather than reactive responses.\u201d<\/p>\n Cook emailed a PDF of his report to Villanueva in early August, asking the chief to select a couple of people to provide edits so he could make the changes in his Word document.<\/p>\n The following week, Cook emailed the chief his final draft.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for all your hard work,\u201d Villanueva responded. \u201cI\u2019ll let you know how we\u2019re going to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the next two months, the report went through a series of edits \u2014 behind closed doors and without Cook\u2019s involvement. The revised report was released publicly on Oct. 8.<\/p>\n