Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles Fire Department officials braced for dangerous winds that would send flames hurtling up hillsides and valleys, destroying areas from Malibu to the Pacific Palisades to the San Fernando Valley.
The National Weather Service had issued a red alert, with wind gusts reaching 90 mph at the end of the day. Forecasters said the upcoming storm would be a once-in-five to 10-year disaster.
So LAFD began preparing its defenses in the days before the winds arrived, taking drastic steps the agency had been unable to take in the last week ahead of the Palisades fire. We have had less rain recently than we did in late November 2011.
The storm was expected to hit Dec. 1, and LAFD commanders ordered at least 40 additional fire trucks for stations closest to the areas at greatest fire risk, including the Palisades, the Times reported. This was learned from paper interviews and internal records. .
According to records and interviews, the additional rigs included more than 20 pre-positioned at these stations and 18 “instant reserve” engines to supplement regular firepower in such emergencies. .
“We didn’t take any chances on this because the risk was too great,” said the former LAFD assistant. Chief Patrick Butler, currently the chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, led the department’s preparations in 2011.
Butler said Los Angeles Fire Department commanders who oversaw the deployment before the Jan. 7 Palisades fire should have been similarly prepared.
“Despite the Bureau of Meteorology announcing this as a life-threatening wind event, they underestimated the threat,” he says. “In my 35 years in the fire service, I’ve never heard the Bureau of Meteorology use words like that. It was a flashing red flag.”
The Bureau of Meteorology had warned that the strongest winds since that time in 2011 were possible on January 7 and the following day. The warning was made all the more dire because a lack of rain in recent months had left the wilderness particularly dry, Ryan Kittel said. Meteorologist at the Japan Meteorological Bureau.
“The vegetation was very dry and the wind was very strong. It’s just the worst combination,” Kittel said.
As The Times reported last week, LAFD decided not to deploy dozens of available engines to fight the wind-driven fires. Documents obtained by the Times show commanders deploying nine spare engines to supplement nine others that had been pre-deployed the morning before the Valley and Hollywood fires. “No” was expressed.
Officials said they moved more engines “first thing in the morning” to cover northeast Los Angeles. No additional engines were sent to the Palisades.
The department also objected to requiring about 1,000 firefighters to work shifts in which they would stay on duty and not go home in the hours before a fire broke out. The decision made it more difficult to quickly staff unused engines after fires began to get out of control, former LAFD chiefs told the Times.
Fire Chief Kristin Crowley and other leaders defended their decision and had to juggle limited resources while continuing to respond to 911 calls unrelated to the fire, but the number of calls exceeded the city’s. The number doubled on January 7, the day the fire started, due to wind damage elsewhere in the country. . LAFD officials also claim that budget constraints and low water levels at some fire hydrants hampered firefighting efforts.
“We followed that system. We spiked where we could spike,” Crowley said at a press conference Wednesday. “Our firefighters ran as fast as they could.”
But the department faced similar challenges in 2011, according to records and interviews, and that didn’t stop commanders from sending more engines into the fire zone before the winds blew.
As it happened, the winds brought down power lines and trees and caused other havoc, but no wildfires. Butler said he has made it a routine to prepare for dire wind forecasts like this one in 2011, and said he has taken similar preemptive measures about 30 other times during his time with LAFD.
In most cases, there were no fires, but commanders can’t bet on the outcome, Butler said. He cited a long-standing Los Angeles Fire Department directive that calls for commanders to deploy whatever is necessary to fight wildfires “vigorously and quickly.”
Former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford told the Times that he would have taken the same approach as Butler in 2011 in response to last week’s wind threat. Mr. Crawford worked for the department for 33 years, including as captain of the LAFD Operations Center, before retiring. He will assume his current post as Emergency and Crisis Management Coordinator for the U.S. Capitol in 2024.
He said the department should have staffed at least 25 more engines the morning before the Palisades fire and moved others to potential fire areas. Recalling the firefighter shifts that day, Crawford said more engineers could have responded.
“I wish I had been more aggressive,” he added.
Due to the harsh wind, he said: “There was about to be a huge fire that day. But was it that deadly? Was it the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles? I don’t think so.
“Give yourself the best chance of minimizing the damage.”
Crowley did not respond to requests for an interview for this article. She and her spokesperson also did not provide answers to the Times’ list of written questions about LAFD’s preparations and response to the Palisades fire.
Asked about the planning decision at a news conference Wednesday, Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged that “the expense is always mine,” but deferred questions to Crowley. Ms. Bass’s news organization did not respond to an email requesting an interview with her for this story.
Deputy Chief Richard Fields, who was responsible for staffing and equipment decisions ahead of the Palisades fire, defended his deployment plan as “appropriate for immediate response.” Asked about stronger preparedness in 2011, he said the department’s number of operational engines was greater at that time.
“Right now, my reserve fleet is zero,” Fields said. “Zero because we have a lot of equipment that is in poor repair.”
But the Times said the department had more than 40 engines available to crews, and officials had only staffed five of them before the fire.
Known internally as the 200 Series Engine, it, like the others, is placed around the city, usually in conjunction with hook ladder trucks that don’t carry water. Except for emergencies, one engineer will respond. It can carry four firefighters if needed for a wildfire.
In a “perfect world,” Crowley said, he would have staffed ready-to-use spare engines, but budget cuts that cut LAFD’s mechanic positions in half have left many out of service. He said he is doing so.
But of the nine spare engines listed in planning documents (a record of government officials saying no to deploying them), only two were out of service and needed to be replaced, officials said. said the people. And seven of them were put into service at some point, most after the fire broke out. Some were pulled from repair shops.
Fire officials say 40 of LAFD’s 195 engines failed during the Palisades fire. Things might have been different if it had been repaired, they said.
Butler and other former Los Angeles Fire Department chiefs said that doesn’t explain why the department didn’t staff up and deploy all available 200-series engines.
“The engine that was in the factory didn’t affect what they could do,” Butler said.
Officials estimate the Palisades Fire has burned about 24,000 acres and destroyed more than 3,500 homes and other structures. At least 10 people died in the fire, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner and Sheriff’s Department.
The Eaton Fire, which followed the Palisades Fire in the Altadena area, blackened more than 14,000 acres, destroyed about 9,000 homes and other structures and killed 17 people, officials said.
“It’s important that we draw lessons from this and not repeat what happened,” Butler said of his decision to lead the team. “I can assure you that our firefighters on the scene are doing their best despite all these challenges.”
Source link
