Los Angeles firefighters will continue to work extra shifts during red flag weather warnings, a mandatory procedure established after fire officials failed to pre-deploy engines to the Pacific Palisades ahead of the devastating fires on Jan. 7.
Mayor Karen Bass’ announcement came after the fire department released a long-awaited study that found the department was hampered by an ineffective process, poor communication, inexperienced leadership and a lack of resources to bring firefighters back to work.
The release of the 70-page report and the changes the department has made in response to the report, Bass said, followed federal prosecutors’ investigation into the Jan. 1 intentional arson that later became the Palisades Fire.
City officials said in August that the fire was pending a federal investigation into the cause of the fire, at the request of federal authorities.
A report released a week after the fire found that LAFD personnel had gone to the Palisades before the fire started despite warnings of extreme weather. Officials also did not require firefighters to stay for additional shifts.
In preparation for the strong winds, authorities decided to increase the number of engines available to only five of the more than 40 available to supplement normal firefighting power. Firefighters who voluntarily returned were only able to staff three engines, according to the after-action report.
Additional engines may have been pre-installed, such as on the Palisades, as had been done in the past during similar weather.
According to the LAFD report, at 8 a.m. on the day of the fire, about two hours before flames erupted, fire officials decided to pre-deploy several additional engines, but none were sent to the Palisades.
Most firefighters worked more than 36 hours without a break while battling the initial fire, according to the report.
In an interview Wednesday, Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva mentioned a stronger pre-deployment model and said he had implemented a change in leadership.
Among a list of changes related to the report, Bass said that in addition to enhanced firefighter training, the fire department is increasing fire preparedness, including “moving personnel to locations faster, giving all officers advance access to pre-briefings, and holding tactical meetings more frequently.”
“I believe that the decisions they made that day were the right ones in their decision-making matrix. … Now, because of that, and because I was able to come in and see everything with a bird’s eye view, things had to change,” Villanueva said. “So I made our deployment model so resource-intensive that we could put everyone in strategic areas that covered the city.”
Villanueva replaced Bass, who was in charge at the time of the fire, in February.
Bass had criticized Crowley’s decisions prior to dispatch and complained that Crowley did not contact her until after the fire broke out.
“I am aware that the 1,000 firefighters who would have been on duty the morning of the fire were sent home under Chief Crowley’s watch,” Bass said in a Feb. 21 statement announcing Chief Crowley’s firing.
She still works in the lower ranks of the fire department and filed a lawsuit alleging that Bass “organized a campaign of misinformation, slander, and retaliation” to protect his political image.
Crowley and other fire department leaders insisted they did the best they could with the budget and resources they had at the time, and said no other measures would have been effective against such a ferocious wind-driven fire.
Bass, who drew intense criticism for being on a diplomatic trip to Ghana at the time of the fire, said the fire department had made 19 leadership changes, including Villanueva’s appointment, and was looking for a permanent chief.
“It is critical that we learn from what has worked, including the relentless bravery of firefighters responding to the fires and the challenges we faced to build stronger emergency response systems to prepare for whatever happens,” Bass said in a statement.
She said the mayor and other key city leaders “will be clearly informed by the LAFD as soon as possible and will remain informed throughout any crisis.”
Several fire service executives had “limited or no experience managing incidents of this complexity,” the fire department report said.
“Some were unfamiliar with their roles within the command and staff and reverted to their previous knowledge in lower ranks, resulting in key command and staff positions remaining vacant and related tasks being neglected,” the report said.
The Palisades Fire, which broke out at 10:30 a.m. on January 7, destroyed thousands of homes and killed 12 people, making it one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in the city’s history.
Federal investigators said Wednesday that the Jan. 7 fire continued to smolder underground even after firefighters thought it was extinguished. Investigators said that six days later, strong winds brought the underground fire to the surface and spread it to the ground, making it one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in the city’s history.
As residents desperately fled the flames, many suffered severe symptoms and abandoned their cars. The report said delays in communicating evacuation orders resulted in spontaneous evacuations and people cutting off routes to the fire without organized traffic control.
Bass said the ministry is working on new evacuation drills using Genasys Protect, a software program that will help with “proper and efficient evacuation of civilians.”
