In the weeks since federal investigators announced that the devastating Palisades fire was caused by a reignition of a smaller blaze, top Los Angeles Fire Department officials have insisted that they did everything they could to put out the earlier fire.
But The Times has obtained records that call into question the agency’s statements about how thoroughly firefighters mopped up the Jan. 1 Lachman fire in the days before it reignited.
In an interview last month, then-Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva said that firefighters returned to the burn area on Jan. 3 — due to a report of smoke — and “cold-trailed” an additional time, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat and dug out hot spots.
“We went back over there again. We dug it all out again. We put ladders on it. We did everything that we could do — cold-trail again,” Villanueva told The Times on Oct. 8. “We did all of that.”
A dispatch log obtained by The Times, however, shows that firefighters arrived at the scene that day and quickly reported seeing no smoke. They then canceled the dispatch for another engine that was on the way, clearing the call within 34 minutes. The log does not mention cold trailing. It’s unclear if crews took any other actions during the call, because the LAFD has not answered questions about it.
The Times has made multiple requests for comment to LAFD spokesperson Capt. Erik Scott by email, text and in person, but the agency has refused to explain the discrepancy. Villanueva also did not respond to an emailed request for comment and an interview request.
The conflict between the LAFD’s statements and its own records is likely to intensify frustration and anger among Palisades fire victims over contradictory and incomplete information about what was done to protect their community. With the first anniversary approaching, gaps remain in what the LAFD has told the public about what it did to prepare for and respond to the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
The LAFD’s after-action report on the Palisades fire makes only a cursory reference to the Lachman blaze. Missing from the 70-page document, released last month, are the report of smoke in the area on Jan. 3 and a battalion chief’s decision to pull firefighters out of the scene the day before, even though they warned him that there were signs of remaining hot spots.
The head of the board that oversees the LAFD has maintained that information about the firefighter warnings — or any examination of the Lachman fire — did not belong in the after-action report.
“The after-action review that was presented to the commission is exactly what we asked for,” Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, said at the board’s meeting on Tuesday. She said the review was only supposed to cover the first 72 hours after the Palisades fire erupted.
“It is not an investigation,” she said. “It should not include things that the newspaper seems to feel like should be included.”
The after-action report detailed missteps in fire officials’ response to the Palisades fire, including major failures in deployment and communications, and made recommendations to prevent the issues from happening again.
Two former LAFD chief officers said the report also should have provided an examination of what might have gone wrong in the mop-up of the Lachman blaze, which investigators believe was deliberately set, as part of its “lessons learned” section.
“A good after-action report documents what happened before the incident,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, who retired from the agency last year and is now emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol. “The after-action report should have gone back all the way to Dec. 31.”
Patrick Butler, a former assistant chief for the LAFD who has worked on several after-action teams, including for the federal government, agreed.
“If you limit an after-action to an artificial timeline, you’re not going to uncover everything you need to learn from,” said Butler, who is the Redondo Beach fire chief.
He noted that the reports shape training and operational improvements for the Fire Department.
“To exclude the Lachman fire from the report gives the appearance of a coverup of foundational facts,” Butler added. “It’s not a harmless oversight. The consequences can be significant and far-reaching.”
The Jan. 3 report of smoke at the Lachman burn area came in shortly before noon, according to a dispatch log of the incident. Firefighters from Fire Station 23 — one of two stations in the Palisades — arrived on the scene about 10 minutes after they were dispatched.
A couple minutes later, they reported “N/S,” or nothing showing, according to the log. A few minutes after that, they canceled the dispatch for an engine from Fire Station 69, the other Palisades station.
The last entry in the log was from 12:20 p.m., indicating that an L.A. County crew was working in the area.
The L.A. County Fire Department said in a statement that the crew was at the scene for less than 30 minutes conducting an “informal ‘lessons learned’ discussion of their actions from the night of the fire.”
“They did not gear up or perform any work while there and they did not see anything of note,” the statement said.
The L.A. County crew left the scene about 12:40 p.m.
The Times previously reported that firefighters were ordered to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area of the Lachman fire on Jan. 2, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. The paper reviewed text messages among three firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the fire, in which they discussed the handling of the blaze.
LAFD officials also opted not to use thermal imaging technology to detect lingering hot spots. Despite warnings of extreme winds leading up to Jan. 7, they failed to pre-deploy any engines or firefighters to the burn area — or anywhere in the Palisades.
At least one battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section has known for months that crews had complained about hot spots after the Lachman fire. But the department kept that information hidden from the public.
At the Tuesday fire commission meeting, newly appointed Fire Chief Jaime Moore — in an apparent reference to The Times reporting — slammed what he called media efforts to “smear” firefighters who battled the worst fire in city history.
“Something that’s been very frustrating for me as fire chief, and through this process, is to watch my friends in the media smear our name and the work that our firefighters did to combat one of the most intense fires, the Palisades, the wind-driven monstrosity that it was,” Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, said on his second day on the job.
He added: “The audacity for people to make comments and say that there’s text messages out there that say that we did not put the fire out, that we did not extinguish the fire. Yet I have yet to see any of those text messages.”
Moore made those remarks despite having been tasked by Mayor Karen Bass with conducting an investigation into The Times report about the LAFD’s response to the Lachman fire.
Bass had requested that Villanueva investigate, saying that “a full understanding … is essential to an accurate accounting of what occurred during the January wildfires.”
Critics have said it would be improper for the LAFD to investigate itself and called for an independent review.
Before the City Council confirmed his appointment as chief, Moore also had called for an outside organization to conduct the inquiry, describing the reports of the firefighters’ warnings on Jan. 2 as alarming.
On Tuesday, he said he would review the LAFD’s response to the Lachman fire.
“I will do as Mayor [Karen] Bass asked, and I will look into the Lachman fire, and we will look at how that was handled, and we will learn from it, and we’ll be better from it,” he said.
A Bass spokesperson said Wednesday that the mayor “has made clear to Chief Moore” that the investigation into the Lachman fire should be conducted by an independent entity.
The LAFD has not responded to a question about who will conduct the probe.
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