This was my house before and after the Palisades Fire. It did not need to burn.
Somedays I wake up and I’m sad. After the January 2025 Palisades Fire, I have more sad days than I did before the fire. Today was a sad day.
Last night, January 22, at the Pacific Palisades Community Council Meeting L.A. City Fire Chief Jamie Moore spoke to the community and then introduced his new public spokesperson Stephanie Moore (no relation). He was asked by Palisades residents to explain who changed the after-action report. He was asked to give names. He was asked to be transparent.
The newly appointed Chief was asked to help people regain trust in LAFD and to help the community heal by telling the truth.
Instead, he said he wasn’t interested in the past and naming names and said, “I’m moving forward.”
If a member of your family is struck down by a car and killed, an investigation is done.
It’s important to know how and why the accident happened. It’s important to find the driver and make sure they are punished so they understand the consequences of their actions.
No one says, “that was the past, that was before I was here.” That’s what Moore said last night.
The Palisades Fire, which killed 12 and destroyed nearly 7,000 properties was not a natural disaster, like a hurricane or a tornado, it was man-made. It is important to know where the fault lies, so it is never repeated.
People in Pacific Palisades lost everything, homes, family members, possessions, neighborhood, community. Palisades residents deserve to know who took everything and why.
There are so many who owned a home/land, but who can’t afford to come back. About 30 percent are seniors who can’t or don’t want to spend their retirement on replacing a home they had lived in for 40, 50 or 60 years. There are condo dwellers who can’t come back because of antiquated laws, which are not allowing rebuilding. There are people who lived in mobile home parks, who owned the structure but not the land. Even if they had money to replace the structure, there’s nowhere to put it. There are so many who had no insurance of Fair insurance, who don’t have money to rebuild.
The Palisades Fire is different than a natural disaster: one can’t stop a hurricane or a tornado, but this fire could have been prevented.
Yes, our officials don’t want to take ownership of the facts of how a town burned. They want us to forget. Just like Fire Chief Moore, they want to move forward and hope that no one examines why.
I will tell you this fire wasn’t climate change, it wasn’t hurricane-force winds, it wasn’t shrubs surrounding our homes or even the building materials used in our homes. City/state officials even blamed residents for the lack of water—“you shouldn’t have left your hoses running.” (That was a myth – didn’t happen. And there was an abundance of water in swimming pools, which could have been used to fight fires.)
At the PPCC meeting, this editor asked Moore. “On January 8, about a third of the town burned that morning. Why was there no aerial support? Why were there no firefighters?” He responded, “I’d like to know that, too.”
But will he find it out, will he tell residents why the Methodist Church and Via de la Paz and condos burned that morning when there was no wind?
Officials need to own up, starting with the text messages between city officials when the fire first broke out. This editor bets if someone could pull them up, there would be disdain and even contempt for the “rich people” in the Palisades. The City chose to stereotype the people living there, which led to biased judgments, discrimination and even hostility – and lack of services.
The majority of Pacific Palisades residents were not rich, not famous, and many had lived there for generations.
This editor is sad that the City/County/State doesn’t want to find out the truth about the fire and will probably continue to cover it up. And tell us, to be like Chief Moore and “move forward.”
We can’t heal until we know the truth. Maybe it’s time for a federal investigation into the fire.
read your every day and am thankful for your tenacity and your fine journalistic investigation .. thank you
I thought there was a federal investigation started in December? Please keep us posted and thank you for your excellent reporting and for asking the important questions.
Well said. Now, how can we, as Palisadians, insure that this transparency comes about? It’s all so frustrating. To have the sadness and loss compounded by outright lies and deception is unbearable. Trying to start over with such anger clouding our thoughts and minds is a compounded struggle. I don’t know how to move forward. Open to ideas!
They don’t care, no one’s ever going to be held accountable and they’ve hired very expensive law firms to make sure of that. Jamie Moore is just part of the machine. The only way things could turn around as if Los Angeles would vote differently. But I don’t see that happening. it’s not a safe city anymore and it doesn’t matter if you pay taxes, all of us are not created equal in Los Angeles – Palisades trusted them and we lost. Hopefully going forward we won’t blindly trust them anymore.
Bravo, Sue, please keep the heat on the b%#$ards!
I am so sorry for your loss; your house looks like it was wonderful – unique and lovely.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles and I lived in the Palisades for over 30 years; I loved the place. I thought I would never move; it was as close to Paradise as I would ever get. Fortunately for me, my husband and we did move – shortly after Covid – because of Covid, and the fact that the “writing was on the wall,” as exemplified by the ubiquitous potholes in the roads that were never repaired.
The voters of LA and the Palisades chose to vote for DEI priorities and environmental priorities and they voted for politicians who deprioritized resource allocation for the “rich.”
Ultimately, the voters of Los Angeles made bad choices. The Palisades was full of voters who prioritized progressive politics over pragmatic politics. The fire didn’t have to happen the way it did. Many, many homes could have been saved. But voters made bad choices.
What you wrote needs to be said and thought about until voters change their priorities.
Ghana mayor Bass did a wonderful job – now she has an excuse for raising taxes even more. As if public employee pensions that make millionaires out of retirees weren’t enough (do the math). $80,000 per years for 30 years = $2,400,000 – a lottery hit at taxpayer expense.
I would agree that a completely independent federal investigation should be done WITHOUT coordination with the City and State governments to ensure that there are people whispering cover-up stories to the investigators.
Well said Sue! Lives were lost and destroyed and yet no one can tell the truth or even be transparent. I wonder if these officials actually heard the actual stories of the pain and suffering Palisadians are experiencing from this fire, if they would tell the truth. I have learned not to believe anything anyone says. I find this really sad. How do these people sleep at night? I couldn’t do it. Every time you think you’ve heard the worst story about the fire there is another one even more awful. Someone, anyone, tell the truth! None of us will have closure, feel safe or trust you until you do.
We have sad days too, Sue. Every day we fight to regain some semblance of the beautiful life we all worked so hard to provide for our community. We will continue to fight, advocate, and show up for one another. Palisadians prove to be a unique demographic of passionate and dedicated neighbors with huge amounts of integrity…. Something was obviously lacking in those early days of the fire, it could not be more obvious…. And we all know.
Grateful to Sue for standing up and demanding transparency from Chief Moore. The lack of a clear response only underscores why our community must keep pressing for answers.
Absolutely! I feel the same way.
I’ve had many sad moments since the fire.
The struggle is real. It’s as if they want us to forget it ever happened.
That’s what they did with 9-11. They rarely even show footage of it, thinking it is too traumatic for someone to know the reality.
The reality is like Sept 11, Jan 7 and 8th did happen!
There was a special commission set up to get to the true of what happened leading up to September 11th.
I feel like the world has just moved on from this.
Not at the recommendation of Mr. Moore, but perhaps, the human tendency to forget about things when they aren’t in the news daily, and it doesn’t affect you.
As survivor’s of this unnatural disaster, we have all had to somehow find a way to get out of bed everyday, to breath and find hope and faith to continue living.
It will never be the same life. We all have different lives now.
I have found strength to go on by leaning on faith and family.
My faith in Jesus (number one) Without whom, I wouldn’t have made it this far. Family because I have a child that looks up to me and I live for him.
My wife of 33 years because we’ve overcome so much in that timeline. This being as traumatic as the others.
I remember a phone conversation I had with someone a couple days after the fire.
I told them “The best way I can describe what this fire feels like is to imagine someone you loved so dearly dies and when they died they take everything with them”.
What occurred on January 7, 2025, and over the past year is a horrible crime. A crime should not be investigated by the criminal suspects or allow them to present the story in a way that exonerates them. The City of LA stands to benefit from a dramatic increase in tax revenue from new homes and high-density housing. Jamie Moore is not here to protect us. He is here to protect the City of LA employees who have exploited Pacific Palisades for decades. And will continue to do so. His denial of finding those responsible at LAFD warrants a federal investigation which is warranted and needed to bring closure to this horrific man-made disaster.
When asked to explain who changed the after-action report Chief Moore said he wasn’t interested in the past, that “I’m moving forward.”
When asked “Why was there no aerial support? Why were there no firefighters?” on January 8th, he responded, “I’d like to know that, too.”
It seems he was caught in a contradiction.
It seems answering the first question, that’s he’s not interested in, would answer the second question, that he claims to be.
I agree! I have the same type of days Sue. I feel abandoned…
We need judge Jessner to allow further discovery to keep our case against the city and state moving forward. February 5 th is a key day for all of us. We need to make sure we are treated fairly and justice is done. Immunity laws need to be changed in the process.
Hi Sue,
I saw this guy on TV and watched him say that he was going to move on. If he is not going to fix the problems, he is the problem. Our house burned to the ground on January 7th. There was not a fireman in sight. I remember several years ago when there was a wildfire, the fire trucks came from all over the city. They lined up on Sunset with four or five in a group and then were dispatched. None of that happened this time.
We deserve answers and people need to hold the leadership accountable.
Wonder if the lawsuits filed will force text messages and everything else out into the open.
Perfectly stated!
Until we know the truth no one can possibly move forward emotionally and moving forward with rebuilding is difficult or in many cases impossible!
Thank-you for reporting this and not giving up!!
Hats off to you Sue Pascoe! You embody what journalism should be. From your journey in the Paliadian Post to this fabulous website.
Our story is one of many, and I blame our top two DEI LAFD Firewomen for letting us burn. I could get back from work, with difficulties, at 12:00 noon on January 7 and the fire had already passed trough the brush in Marquez Knolls. I spent until 6 pm potting out hotspots with a garden hose in my garden and those of neighbors. When darkness fell we took our passports and tax papers and a change of underwear and drove out. We thought we would be back next day. During this entire time we did not see a single fireman use even a drop of water. A single fire engine would have saved the entire Marquez area. It was a total waste. As we drove our that night, Gelson’s was on fire and drove down Temescal Canyon Road between two walls of fire in a scene out of hell. When we got to PCH was when we spotted the first of our famed responders, a Police car.
Our beautiful home of many decades burned down on the morning of the next day, almost 24 hours after the fire had first passed us by.
State Farm Insurance canceled our Fire insurance of three decades in December 2024. Our local Festa Agancy was no help at all. And it was a legal Catch 22, because our roof was more than 25 years old and I could not change it just like that. We lost everything, just like so many of you.
And for her troubles the Mayor of Ghana will be re- elected in June. I will remember and never forgive that they let us burn so callously.
The reason I released the reports to disprove the disinformation of “hurricane-force winds” and “climate change” was to encourage people to file claims before the six month statute of limitations would prevent accountability.
On Jan 8 at 7AM, the Fire Chief claimed “only a few dozen homes were destroyed” when he knew there were thousands. According the fire department, he knowingly made this false claim because the truth would cause “mass hysteria and chaos”.
The public will not know the truth until after 2028 Olympics and Presidential Election. By then, it will be too late.
There is video that shows the Alphabet Streets were still standing on the 8th, they could have been saved with helicopters, or a competent person running DWP.
Why is Janisse Quinones still in the job? I don’t feel safe with her in the job, or Bass.
I don’t feel safe with Moore, the new Fire Chief either. We should have some say in this hire.
Yes, our tax dollars would help the city, but they won’t help us because they won’t admit any liability, crazy, incompetent thinking. INCOMPETENCE in every one of Bass’s hires.