The Los Angeles Fire Department faced unprecedented warnings of life-threatening high winds and commanders said it had about 1,000 vacant firefighters and several others ahead of the ongoing blaze that has destroyed much of the Pacific Palisades. It was decided not to allocate the ten water engines for emergency deployment. Byrne, interviews and LAFD internal records show.
Last Tuesday, as the winds were picking up, fire officials did not order firefighters to continue working second shifts, which would have doubled the number of staff, but instead of 40,000 available to fight wildfires. Only five of the more than five engines were deployed. , according to records obtained by the Times and interviews with LAFD officials and a former chief familiar with city operations.
After the Palisades fire got out of control, the department began calling in more firefighters and deploying additional engines.
Officials said no additional engines were installed in the Palisades, where the fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 7. Anticipating the possibility of a fire, the department pre-deployed nine engines that were already on duty to the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. Officials said they moved more engines “first thing in the morning” to also cover northeast Los Angeles.
The paper’s findings come as LAFD officials continue to claim that firefighting efforts have been hampered by department budget cuts and low water levels at some fire hydrants. They only acknowledged the decision not to add more firefighters or pre-position available engines after The Times presented internal documents describing the fire department’s operations.
Fire Chief Christine Crowley defended the agency’s decision, saying commanders needed to act strategically with limited resources while continuing to respond to routine 911 calls. He said the number of calls on Tuesday was double that of a normal day, reaching 3,000 calls across LAFD’s 106 fire stations, as strong winds toppled trees and power lines.
“I support the plan they put together because we have to take care of everyone in the city,” Crowley told the Times.
But several former chiefs with deep experience in Los Angeles Fire Department tactics say most of the more than 40 engines available could have been pre-deployed to the fire area before the Palisades fire began. He said the rest may have been kept at the station in response to an increase in 911 calls. These engines were ultimately used to fight the Palisades Fire and other fires, or as replacements for other engines deployed on the front lines, current LAFD officials said.
“The plans we use now for fires should have been used before the fires started,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford. “This is a known staffing tactic, a deployment model.”
Over the past few days, Crowley and other officials have provided the Times with varying accounts of how many engines were available to supplement routine deployments. The department said “no” to deploying nine additional engines, known as “ready reserve” engines, to fire-prone areas, according to internal planning documents obtained by the Times from sources. These are different from the nine engines previously installed in Valley and Hollywood.
Crowley initially told the Times that most of the spare engines that were ready were inoperable or unusable. But a spokesperson for Mr Crowley later said only four of the nine cases were not immediately available. A third official later produced a document saying seven of them had been used at some point, most of them after the fire started.
Crawford and other sources told the Times that other engines in the group of more than 40 may have been used to replace the disabled spare engine.
Deputy Chief Richard Fields, who was in charge of staffing and equipment decisions ahead of Tuesday’s fire, said in an interview that the deployment plan was “appropriate for an immediate response.”
“It’s very easy for quarterbacks to sit on the couch on Monday morning and talk about what we should have done now that it happened,” he said. “What we did was based on years of experience, and we were also trying to be accountable to the rest of the city at any point in the day.”
Some fire officials also suggested that the winds were so intense that no amount of extra boots on the ground or engines could have stopped the blaze. are.
Jason Hinn, the department’s chief deputy for emergency response, acknowledged that pre-deployed resources were not enough, but said more resources might not have made a difference.
He also said staffing was similar to previous red flag events.
“That fire was the most erratic I’ve ever seen. Winds from 60 to 90 miles per hour were blowing in multiple directions, creating patches like I’ve never seen before. ” Hinn said. “No one should have been caught in that fire.”
But some argue that the more protection the department has in place, regardless of wind speed or behavior, the better chance it has of putting out fires while they are small. They quote LAFD operational publications stating: …If it’s a high-risk day, (fire) companies will be pre-deployed. ”
“All fires start as small as a match head,” said Crawford, who currently serves as the U.S. Capitol’s emergency and crisis management coordinator. During his 33 years with LAFD, he worked on a variety of large wildfires, including the massive Camp Fire in Northern California in 2018.
Crawford said he would order about 1,000 firefighters to remain on duty when a second shift begins on Tuesday (known as a limited recall) in response to last week’s high wind warning. measures).
The department has three firefighter shifts, or platoons, operating around the clock. A limited recall allows commanders to meet emergency staffing needs, including available engines, without relying on firefighters voluntarily returning to duty.
Limited recalls have been used in other large fires and may be imposed before or after a fire starts. Crawford and other officials said commanders are sometimes hesitant to order a recall because of concerns about its cost, including overtime pay.
Regardless of cost, Crawford said at least 25 of the more than 40 engines available will be installed at stations closest to the hillside, including Palisades. 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.
“We would have had a better chance of getting a better result if we had these engines in,” Crawford said. Mr. Crawford’s career also includes serving as a lieutenant in the LAFD Operations Center. “Give yourself the best chance of minimizing the size of the fire. … Then you can say, ‘We threw everything at it from the get-go.'”
“That didn’t happen here,” he said, adding that the decision to no longer use the 200 series engines and keep them in service was part of a “domino effect of missteps” by commanders.
Battalion Chief Patrick Leonard said firefighters were not ordered to continue working their leaving shifts because “we didn’t have the equipment to accommodate another 1,000 members.” The equipment includes an engine. Leonard did not say why the department did not recall shifts to fully staff available 200-series engines, as it had done during previous emergencies.
Crowley said firefighters already on duty, including fire inspectors, were quickly scrambled to staff five more 200 series engines, but only after the Palisades Fire began to crack open. Ta.
Crowley added that some volunteer firefighters were sent home after the fire spread because they had nowhere to stay. Authorities have not said how many people have returned.
Officials estimate the Palisades Fire has burned about 24,000 acres and destroyed or damaged more than 5,300 homes and other structures. At least eight people died in the fire, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office and Sheriff’s Department.
The Eaton Fire, which followed the Palisades Fire in the Altadena area, blackened more than 14,000 acres, destroyed or damaged 7,000 homes and other structures, and killed 17 people, authorities said.
The day before hazardous weather occurs, LAFD personnel typically receive an afternoon briefing from the National Weather Service and use that information to decide where to deploy firefighters and engines the next morning.
The Bureau of Meteorology had been sounding severe fire weather warnings for several days. “AWARE!!!” NWS Los Angeles posted on the morning of January 6 that a “life-threatening and destructive” storm was incoming.
There hasn’t been much rain in months, and wind gusts were expected to reach 130 mph. The so-called Burning Index, a measure of wildfire threat, was off the charts. Anything above 162 is considered “extreme,” and the flammability index that Tuesday was 268.
“A life-threatening and destructive storm is likely to develop this afternoon through Wednesday morning,” LAFD officials wrote in an internal memo detailing staffing for Jan. 7, along with the National Weather Service. Similarly stated.
It is believed that the ready spare engines can be used in case of weather emergencies and sometimes to replace broken rigs in station buildings.
In a “perfect world,” Crowley said, he would have staffed ready-to-use reserve engines, but budget cuts that cut LAFD’s mechanic positions in half have left many in ruins. He said that it has become. Officials say two of the machines are broken and will need to be completely replaced.
In any case, Fields said he didn’t think the engines were necessary because they weren’t necessarily a “game changer” when planning for storms.
Mr Fields said: “I accept that there may be scrutiny for not having sufficient funds in the wake of the incident.” “But I challenge those who are reviewing it to make a different decision before this happens.”
He, like Crowley, said pre-positioning more engines could not be done at the expense of the department’s ability to respond to emergencies outside fire zones.
However, Crawford believes that if 25 200-series engines (five times the number allocated the morning before the Palisades fire) were pre-deployed in case of a wildfire crisis, they would not be unrelated to the wildfire. He said about 15 units will remain at the station to respond to 911 calls. fire.
“That’s more than enough,” he said.
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