{"id":53636,"date":"2025-11-14T23:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T23:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/53636\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T23:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T23:17:07","slug":"lafd-insider-named-chief-amid-lingering-questions-about-palisades-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/53636\/","title":{"rendered":"LAFD insider named chief amid lingering questions about Palisades fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As Jaime Moore prepares to take the helm of the Los Angeles Fire Department, he said he plans to commission an outside investigation into missteps by fire officials<\/a> during the mop-up of a small brush fire that reignited days later into the destructive Palisades fire. <\/p>\n

Mayor Karen Bass had requested a probe<\/a> late last month in response to reporting by The Times that firefighters were ordered to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area of the Lachman fire, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering.<\/p>\n

Moore \u2014 a 30-year department veteran whose appointment<\/a> as chief was confirmed Friday by the Los Angeles City Council \u2014 said the reports have generated \u201cunderstandable mistrust\u201d in the agency. <\/p>\n

The Times found that at least one battalion chief assigned to the LAFD\u2019s risk management section knew about the complaints<\/a> for months, but that the department kept that information hidden despite Palisades fire victims pleading for answers about whether more could have been done to protect their community.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Moore told the council\u2019s public safety committee that bringing in an outside organization to investigate the LAFD\u2019s handling of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire would be one of his first moves as chief.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransparency and accountability are vital to ensure that we learn from every incident, and it is essential if we are to restore confidence in our fire department,\u201d Moore said. \u201cAs fire chief, I will focus on rebuilding trust, not just with the public, but within the LAFD itself.\u201d <\/p>\n

He reiterated those remarks on Friday before the council voted 12-0 to confirm his appointment. <\/p>\n

\u201cTogether, we will modernize our operations, invest in our people and continue to protect this great city we all call home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Federal investigators say the Lachman fire was deliberately set on New Year\u2019s Day and burned underground in a canyon root system until it was rekindled by high winds on Jan. 7 to become the worst wildfire in city history. LAFD officials have said they believed the earlier fire<\/a> was fully extinguished. <\/p>\n

Moore said one of his top priorities is raising morale in a department that has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. <\/p>\n

The Times reported that LAFD officials decided not to pre-deploy any engines<\/a> or firefighters to the Palisades \u2014 as they had done in the past \u2014 despite being warned that some of the most dangerous winds<\/a> in recent years were headed for the region. <\/p>\n

An LAFD after-action report released last month described fire officials\u2019 chaotic response, which was plagued by major staffing and communication issues.<\/p>\n

Moore \u2014 who has the backing of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the union that represents firefighters \u2014 said his other priorities include better preparation for major disasters, with a focus on pre-deployment and staffing, as well as for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.<\/p>\n

According to the mayor\u2019s office, Moore is the second Latino and the first fluent Spanish speaker to permanently head the fire department in a city where nearly half the residents are Latino.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got skin in the game,\u201d he said Wednesday, adding that his son is an LAFD firefighter. \u201cWe need to address the amount of calls they\u2019re going on, and make sure that they\u2019re going on the right calls with the right resources, and if that means us having to change our deployment model, so be it. I have the courage to do that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Moore also said he wants to expand the LAFD\u2019s technological capabilities and better deploy the equipment it already has, such as the thermal imaging cameras and heat-detecting drones that officials did not utilize during the Lachman fire<\/a> mop-up. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now requiring them to be used, and we\u2019re not picking up any type of hose until we know that we\u2019ve been able to identify with the use of the drone and thermal imaging cameras to ensure that those surface hot spots are all taken care of,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wish it didn\u2019t take this for us to have to learn the lesson about using the tools we already have,\u201d replied Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes the Palisades<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Park grilled Moore on reporting by The Times that firefighters warned a battalion chief about their observations that the Lachman fire might not be fully extinguished. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know now that our own firefighters on the ground were offering warnings that it was still too hot, that it was still too smoldering,\u201d Park said. \u201cFor Palisades residents and Angelenos across the city who have questions and concerns, what would you say to them at this point?\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore referred back to the independent investigation that he plans to launch. Bass had asked interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva to investigate the LAFD\u2019s response to the Lachman fire, saying that \u201ca full understanding … is essential to an accurate accounting of what occurred during the January wildfires.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to know why it happened, how it happened and take the necessary steps to ensure that it never happens again,\u201d Moore said. <\/p>\n

The Times reviewed text messages among firefighters and a third party that indicated crews had expressed concerns that the Lachman fire would reignite if left unprotected. The exchanges occurred in the weeks and months after the Palisades fire. <\/p>\n

In one text message, a firefighter who was at the Lachman scene Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief in charge had been told it was a \u201cbad idea\u201d to leave because of visible signs of smoldering terrain, which crews feared could start a new blaze.<\/p>\n

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And another said in texts last month that crew members were upset when directed to leave the scene, but that they could not ignore orders. <\/p>\n

The firefighters\u2019 accounts line up with a video recorded by a hiker<\/a> above Skull Rock Trailhead late in the morning on Jan. 2 \u2014 almost 36 hours after the Lachman fire started \u2014 that shows smoke rising from the dirt. \u201cIt\u2019s still smoldering,\u201d the hiker says from behind the camera.<\/p>\n

A federal grand jury subpoena<\/a> was served on the LAFD for firefighters\u2019 communications, including text messages, about smoke or hot spots in the area of the Lachman fire, according to an LAFD memo. It is unclear if the subpoena is directly related to the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, who is accused of setting the Jan. 1 fire and has pleaded not guilty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Complaints that the city and state failed to properly prepare for and respond to the Palisades fire are the subject of numerous lawsuits and a Republican-led inquiry<\/a> by a U.S. Senate committee.<\/p>\n

In addition to the pre-deployment issue, the LAFD\u2019s after-action report found other problems with the department\u2019s response to the apocalyptic Jan. 7 fire. <\/p>\n

The initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27. <\/p>\n

Confusion over which radio channel to use hampered communication. At one point in the first hour, three L.A. County engines showed up requesting an assignment and received no reply. Another four LAFD engines assembled but waited 20 minutes without an assignment. <\/p>\n

In the early afternoon that day, the staging area \u2014 where engines were checking in \u2014 was overrun by fire.<\/p>\n

The report also said that several top fire officials \u201chad limited or no experience in managing an incident of such complexity,\u201d which resulted in \u201ckey command and staff positions remaining unfilled and associated tasks being neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore, who starts as chief on Monday, said he is closely evaluating the 42 recommendations in the report to make sure they are properly implemented. They included strengthening procedures to recall firefighters back to work, producing a thorough threat assessment to identify areas most vulnerable to brush fires and establishing a formal communications plan for major incidents.<\/p>\n

Bass announced Moore\u2019s selection last month after conducting a nationwide search that included interviews with fire chiefs of other cities. She had ousted Kristen Crowley<\/a>, who was chief during the Palisades fire, citing the failure to properly deploy ahead of the extreme weather, and appointed Villanueva in February. <\/p>\n

Moore \u2014 who said he grew up in the Mar Vista and Venice area \u2014 joined the LAFD as a firefighter in 1995, working his way up the ranks in various assignments throughout the city, including supervising arson investigations and serving as a spokesperson for the agency, according to his resume. He most recently was deputy chief of the Operations Valley Bureau, directing the response to emergencies across 39 fire stations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Jaime Moore prepares to take the helm of the Los Angeles Fire Department, he said he plans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[33769,12032,33768,14282,6947,217,4330,17705,7217,48,52,51,7216,8440,9925,47,50,49,1839,26786,1791],"class_list":["post-53636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-assignment","tag-chief","tag-city-history","tag-communication-issue","tag-crew","tag-day","tag-firefighter","tag-jaime-moore","tag-jan","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lachman-fire","tag-lafd","tag-last-month","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-palisades-fire","tag-text-message","tag-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53636","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=53636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}