LA fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire. They didn’t

As the Los Angeles Fire Department faces rare warnings of life-threatening winds, senior management decided not to deploy the emergency dispatch of nearly 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water engines ahead of the blaze that has destroyed much of the Pacific Palisades and continues to burn, interviews and internal LAFD records show. .

Fire officials chose not to order firefighters to continue a second shift last Tuesday as winds picked up – which would have doubled crews – and five of the more than 40 engines available to help fight the wildfires. , according to records obtained by the Times, as well as interviews with LAFD officials and former chiefs with knowledge of the city’s operations.

The department even started calling in more firefighters and putting in those extra engines after the Palisades fire got out of control.

There were no additional engines in Palisades, where the fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 7, officials said. The department has put nine engines in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood on standby, expecting fires to break out there. Officials said they moved several engines “first thing in the morning” to resupply northeast LA

The Times’ findings come as LAFD officials continue to say that firefighting efforts have been hampered by department budget cuts and a lack of water for some firefighting services. Until The Times obtained internal records, officials did not admit that they refused to operate and put the other engines in place before the fire started.

Fire Chief Kristin Crowley defended her agency’s decisions, saying managers must be strategic with limited resources while continuing to handle routine 911 calls. He said the number of calls doubled Tuesday from a normal day, to 3,000 at LAFD’s 106 fire stations, as strong winds brought down trees and power lines.

“The plan they’re putting together, I’m still standing by, because we have to treat everyone in town,” Crowley told The Times.

But several former chiefs with extensive knowledge of LAFD tactics said most of the more than 40 engines available could have been deployed to fire stations before the Palisades fire started, while others were kept at stations to help increase 911 calls. Those engines ended up being used to fight the Palisades fire and other fires or to fill other engines deployed further, current LAFD officials said.

“The fire strategy you are using now should have been used before the fire,” said former LAFD Chief Rick Crawford. “It’s a well-known labor strategy – the deployment model.”

In the past few days, Crowley and other officials have given The Times varying accounts of how many engines are available to supplement regular shipments. An internal planning document obtained by the Times from a source showed that the department said “no” to deploying nine additional engines, known as “correct” engines, to fire-prone areas. Those are different from the nine engines previously installed in the Valley and Hollywood.

Crowley initially told The Times that many of the right engines were not working or were missing. However, later a spokesman for Crowley said that four of the nine were not immediately found. A third official then pulls out a scroll that says seven were hired at once – most of them after the fire.

Some engines from the group of more than 40 that could be replaced were already disabled, Crawford and other sources told The Times.

Deputy Chief Richard Fields, who was in charge of personnel and equipment decisions before Tuesday’s fire, said in an interview that his deployment plan “deserves an immediate response.”

“It’s very easy for you to play fullback on Monday morning and sit on the couch and tell us what we should have done now that it’s happened,” he said. “What we did was based on many years of experience and we try to be responsible for the whole city at any time of the day.”

Some fire officials have suggested that the wind was so strong that no amount of extra boots on the ground or ready engines could have stopped the flames.

Mr. Jason Hing, the Deputy Chief of the Department of Emergency, agreed that the resources used previously were not enough, but he said that it is possible that many did not make a difference.

He also said that the recruitment of staff is the same as the previous red events.

“That fire was the strangest behavior I’ve ever seen — 60 to 90 mile-per-hour winds blowing in many directions, seeing like I’ve never seen it before,” Hing said. “There was no one to catch that fire.”

But others say that if the door has the ability to protect itself, the better the chances of stopping the fire at a young age, regardless of the speed and behavior of the winds. They quoted the LAFD’s operations manual as saying, “Our first alarm brush response is based on the ‘hit hard and fast’ concept. … If it’s a very dangerous day, the (fire) companies will be deployed in advance.”

“Every fire starts the size of a game head,” said Crawford, now the emergency and disaster management coordinator at the US Capitol. He has worked on a variety of large fires, including the 2018 Paradise fire in northern California, during his 33 years with the LAFD.

In response to last week’s wind warning, Crawford said he would order about 1,000 firefighters to remain on duty that Tuesday, a move known as a limited recall, as the second shift began.

The department has three 24-hour staff members, or a team of firefighters. The limited recall enables commanders to fill the needs of emergency personnel, including available engines, without relying on firefighters returning to duty voluntarily.

Limited recall is used for some large fireworks, and can be set before or after the fire breaks out. Crawford and other officials say concerns about the cost of the recall, including overtime pay, sometimes make managers reluctant to order it.

Regardless of the cost, Crawford said he would play at least 25 of the more than 40 existing engines at stations near the slopes, including the Palisades. Known internally as 200 Series engines, they are similar to other engines and are positioned around town, often paired with hook and ladder trucks, which do not carry water. In non-emergency situations, one engineer is employed. If needed due to wildfire, they carry four firemen.

“You would have had a better chance of getting a better result if you had used those engines,” said Crawford, whose LAFD career included serving as a captain in the department’s operations center. “You give yourself the best chance of reducing how big the fire can be. … When you do that, you have the ability to say, ‘I threw everything at the beginning.’”

“That didn’t happen here,” he said, adding that the decisions not to use many of the 200 Series engines and to order them to remain in service were part of the management’s “improper influence”.

Army chief Patrick Leonard said the firefighters who did not come out were ordered to continue working because “we didn’t have the resources of another 1,000 members.” Services will include engines. Leonard did not address why the change was not reversed to fully utilize the available 200 Series engines, as the department has done in past emergencies.

Crowley said firefighters already on duty, including fire inspectors, were quickly pressed to use five 200 Series engines, but that was after the Palisades fire had begun to tear.

Some firefighters who volunteered to work after the fire spread were sent back to their homes because there was nowhere to put them, said Crowley. Officials did not specify how many returned home.

The Palisades fire has burned about 24,000 acres and destroyed or damaged more than 5,300 homes and other structures, officials estimated. At least eight people died in the fire, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office and the Sheriff’s Department.

The Eaton fire, which started after the Palisades fire broke out in the Altadena area, has blackened more than 14,000 acres, damaged or destroyed 7,000 homes and other structures, and killed 16 people, officials said.

The day before any hazardous weather, LAFD officials are often notified in the afternoon by the National Weather Service and use that information to determine where to position firefighters and engines the following morning.

The weather service has been warning about severe fire weather for several days. “HEADS UP!!!” NWS Los Angeles posted on X morning of Jan. 6. A “LIFE-THREATENING, DESTROYING” STORM WILL RISE.

It hasn’t rained much in months, and wind gusts were expected to reach 80 mph. The so-called burn index – a measure of wildfire threat – was off the charts. Anything above 162 is considered “extreme,” and the burning index for that Tuesday was 268.

“There is a high likelihood of a life-threatening and destructive storm this afternoon through Wednesday morning,” LAFD officials wrote in an internal letter detailing staff assignments dated Jan. 7, echoing the weather agency.

Ready spare engines should be available in case of emergencies and sometimes replace broken pieces of equipment in station houses.

Crowley said that “in a perfect world,” he would still have the engines ready, but budget cuts that have eliminated half of the LAFD’s mechanic positions have left many in dire straits. Two are not working and need to be completely replaced, officials said.

In any case, Fields said he didn’t think he needed engines when planning a storm because it wouldn’t be a “game changer”.

“I accept that we can take a closer look at whether we have done enough after what happened,” said Fields. “But I would challenge any of those people who are considering that to make a different decision before it happens.”

He, like Crowley, said sending more engines in the past would not have been possible because of the department’s ability to respond to emergencies outside of the fire scene.

However, Crawford said before deploying 25 of the 200 Series engines to the threatened wildfire — five times the number assigned the morning before the Palisades fire — it would have left 17 in station houses to assist with non-fire-related 911 calls.

“That’s more than enough,” he said.