exposing red-hot coals<\/a>. He heard crackling and smelled smoke. He looked around, and there were no other firefighters.<\/p>\nWe shouldn\u2019t be picking up hoses, he thought to himself. Instead, we should be filling the hoses with water to do a more thorough mop-up.<\/p>\n
He pinched the hose, directing any residual water to the ash pit. It steamed and crackled. He felt defeated when he only got a couple of gallons out, which wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
He slowed down, in case the pickup plan were to change because of his observations, and was relieved when more crews began hiking over.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, guys, are you seeing what I\u2019m seeing?\u201d Pike told a couple of firefighters. He was working an overtime shift away from his usual fire station, so he didn\u2019t know them. \u201cLike, maybe we should be charging these lines instead of picking them up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since they were already there, he figured, some extra mop-up could save them work down the line if the fire were to reignite.<\/p>\n
The firefighters shrugged him off and seemed eager to finish the assignment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were like, \u2018Yeah, I see what you\u2019re saying,\u2019 And then it was like, \u2018We\u2019ll tell one of the skippers. We\u2019ll tell one of the captains.\u2019 But, like, in the meantime, people were just very much like, just get the hose picked up,\u201d Pike testified. <\/p>\n
Shortly after, he saw a captain and raised the same concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how I approached him, is like, \u2018Hey, Cap … We have hot spots in general. We have some ash pits,\u2019\u201d Pike said. \u201cThat\u2019s an alert to double-check the whole area and maybe we need to switch our tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pike testified that it was not his job \u201cto overstep and tell him what to do. He earned that rank.\u201d<\/p>\n
The captain suggested possibly bringing hand tools or a backpack filled with water up the hill to extinguish any hot spots. <\/p>\n
Pike went back to picking up the hose while awaiting new orders, which never came.<\/p>\n
The LAFD has declined to say whether the captain has been identified. Pike believed the captain was from Engine 69, which would have been McIndoe. But McIndoe told The Times he did not speak with Pike that day.<\/p>\n
McIndoe said he also came across a smoldering ash pit during the couple of hours he was on the hill.<\/p>\n
He retrieved a backpack with water from his engine, sprayed into the ground with a couple of gallons of water and dug up the dirt with his hand tool until he was satisfied it was cool.<\/p>\n
At one point, he saw Garcia, the battalion chief, and brought up their earlier conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just went up to him, and I said, \u2018Hey, I hope you don\u2019t think I\u2019m just trying to get out of work,\u2019\u201d McIndoe said. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018No, that\u2019s \u2014 that\u2019s fine.\u2019 Something along those lines, and that that\u2019s all I can really recall.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he was trying to tell Garcia that he believed \u201cthat the hose should stay up a little bit longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time Gonzalez, who was backfilling that day at the Brentwood station, got to the scene, the operation was well underway, with half the hose already down the hillside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got there, it was just, it\u2019s like a big daisy chain of hands pulling hose off and getting it down to the street. And rolling it, hosing it off and loading it into the plug buggy,\u201d he testified. <\/p>\n
He did not see smoldering that day. He testified that he went about 200 to 300 feet up, to where piles of hose were being dropped. \u201cThe next person brings it back down and that was it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Some firefighters on hose pickup duty that day have not been deposed in the lawsuit. Aside from McIndoe and Pike, the four other firefighters who testified that they were at the burn scar on Jan. 2 said they did not see smoldering. <\/p>\n
Garcia testified that at the burn scar, no one raised any concerns with him about the hose pickup. Nor did he see any need to leave the hoses at the site. <\/p>\n
At 1:35 p.m. on Jan. 2, Garcia texted two higher-ups: \u201cAll hose and equipment has been picked up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around 4:30 p.m., Garcia walked the area again with his aide to see if they had left any equipment behind. He saw no issues. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe both walked the whole area,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cWe went separate directions, but covered the whole area, and there was nothing that would bring any concern.\u201d <\/p>\n
11:51 a.m. on Jan. 3, 2025 <\/p>\n
Shortly before noon, someone called the LAFD about a grass fire in the burn area.<\/p>\n
Engineer Edward Rincon, who had been on Engine 23 retrieving hoses the day before, pulled up to the same cul-de-sac. Once again, his crew threw the 20-foot ladder over the retaining wall. As on the previous day, he never entered the burn scar. He stayed with the engine while the captain and two firefighters went to scope out the area. He set the volume high on his radio to hear if they needed anything.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the wall, Capt. Cesar Garcia walked for what he said was more than a couple of football fields, while the two firefighters went to different peaks to look around for smoke or fire. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is completely burned. I don\u2019t smell anything. I don\u2019t see any smoke. I don\u2019t see any fire,\u201d he testified. <\/p>\n
He canceled another engine that was assigned to the call.<\/p>\n
Firefighter Michael Contreras said he also didn\u2019t see smoke. He said he could not see the entirety of the burn scar from his vantage point. He also said he did not suggest to his captain, Cesar Garcia, that they walk the whole perimeter. <\/p>\n
\u201cIs there a reason you did not?\u201d a plaintiffs\u2019 attorney asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, would not be my lane to tell him that, you know,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Battalion Chief Mario Garcia was on duty again that day. Like Rincon, he stayed with his vehicle. Cesar Garcia said the chief pulled up a live feed on an iPad from two cameras on the mountain, which showed no smoke or fire. <\/p>\n
An incident report shows they spent about 34 minutes on the call. <\/p>\n
On the morning of Jan. 7, LAFD records show, a captain on duty in the Palisades called Fire Station 23 and told colleagues: The Lachman fire had started up again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Ulibarri spent about six hours on New Year\u2019s Day last year squashing hot spots where the Lachman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[599,52838,6947,217,31208,4330,14897,91404,98585,48,52,51,7216,8440,47,50,49,93043,91402,98584,646],"class_list":{"0":"post-214928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-area","9":"tag-captain","10":"tag-crew","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-fire-station","13":"tag-firefighter","14":"tag-garcia","15":"tag-hose","16":"tag-hose-line","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-la-headlines","19":"tag-la-news","20":"tag-lachman-fire","21":"tag-lafd","22":"tag-los-angeles","23":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","24":"tag-los-angeles-news","25":"tag-michael-mcindoe","26":"tag-scott-pike","27":"tag-small-jan","28":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}