Homes burned on January 8, the day after the Palisades Fire.
The L.A. Times, through a public records request, received seven draft copies of the Palisades After-Action Fire report before the final LAFD report was released.
In that final October 8 report there were omissions and wording changes all meant to downplay the failures during the Palisades Fire. The first draft reviewed by the Times had 74 recommendations and lessons learned, the final draft had 42 items.
After the January 7 fire, numerous residents told Circling the News that there were lines of fire trucks in Will Rogers State Beach Parking Lot. That firefighters were standing around drinking coffee while the town burned.
CTN made a March 13 public records request asking, “When people evacuated down Temescal Canyon Road around 8:30 p.m. on January 7 there were lines of fire trucks in the Will Rogers Beach Parking lot. When a separate group of residents evacuated early morning on January 8, there were still lines of fire trucks in the Will Rogers Beach Parking lot. Why were the trucks not up in neighborhoods putting out spot fires?” And CTN asked for emails and texts.
The response was “The CPRA does not obligate agencies to answer questions, create new records, or compile information in response to a question or request for information.”
In the Times story (“Palisades Fire Report Watered Down, Files Show”), it notes that “Another passage that was deleted said that some crews waited for more than an hour for an assignment on the day of the fire.” And in a separate L.A. Times Story (“Palisades Fire Report Revisions Irk Author”), “There was confusion over which radio channel to use. The report said that three L.A. County engines showed up within the first hour requesting an assignment and received no reply. Four other LAFD engines waited 20 minutes without an assignment.”
At the start of the Palisades Fire around 10:40 a.m., this editor was working on a story, when a reader emailed me about a fire. He was working in building off Sawtelle and could see the smoke. He said, “it looked big,” and sent a photo from his office window.
Clicking on LAFD alert emails, there were minimal fire trucks being sent to this January 7 fire. If there was concern about record-breaking Santa Ana Winds, this editor wondered why so few trucks were being sent.
In the L.A.Ttimes ”Watered Down” story, they write “a paperwork error resulted in the use of only a third of the state-funded resources were available for pre-positioning in the high-risk areas, the report said. And when the fire broke out on the morning of January 7, the initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27.”
More damning, was a statement in the section on what LAFD could have done better: “If the Department had adequately augmented all available resources as done in past years in preparation for the weather event, the Department would have been required to recall members for all available positions unfilled by voluntary overtime, which would have allowed for all remaining resources to be staffed and available for augmentation, pre-deployment and pre-positioning.” The draft said that the decision was to be ‘fiscally responsible’ that went against the department’s policy and procedures.”
The 31-room Will Rogers Historic Ranchhouse burned in the Palisades Fire.
© California State Parks, all rights reserved.
PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS, NUMBER, DATES AND RESPONSES.
LAFD #25-1243, January 23.
( I had reported after the October fire in the Highlands that the Santa Ynez Reservoir was empty. I learned after the Palisades Fire, that the Chautauqua Reservoir had also been emptied for repairs).
REQUESTED: Was there a reservoir in Pacific Palisades that was active?
RESPONSE: Please be advised that the LAFD has not identified any documents that are responsive to your request, and therefore considers this request completed and closed.
LAFD #25-1240, January 23.
REQUESTED: Reuters reported, “During Biden’s visit (to LA) the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued temporary flight restrictions in Los Angeles airspace for VIP movement, according to a spokesperson.
“But during that time, the FAA spokesperson said in an email, ‘Pilots conducting firefighting operations could fly in the restricted airspace provided they coordinate beforehand with air traffic control,” as outlined in paragraph A of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM).”
Did Crowley or the Mayor’s office make the request and at what time?
RESPONSE: The anticipated POTUS TFR was posted early on all of our accessible platforms, and the language listed above is within the body of the TFR. TFRs and NOTAMS are posted to TFR.FAA.gov, and all aviators are required to be thoroughly familiar with the procedures, which are identified in the Federal Aviation Regulations Aeronautical Information Manual and are outlined in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 91.141 Flight Restrictions in the Proximity of the Presidential and Other Parties. LAFD Air Ops is no exception. We briefed on it well in advance (days) and again that morning.
We regularly require access to POTUS or VPOTUS TFRs in the LA area and are familiar with accessing them for emergency responses. On the morning of the Palisades fire, an on-duty lead pilot contacted the Secret Service to request entry into the TFR upon dispatch to the brush fire in Hollywood.
Your request has been completed and closed. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this correspondence, please respond to this email.
LAFD #25-2179 February 11
REQUESTED: On January 8 and 9, about an additional 100 structures burned in Pacific Palisades. Can you provide the communication, email, message or telephone call to or from LAFD Chief Crowley that referenced the cessation of all firefighting efforts in Pacific Palisades, that might have included asking for additional water tanks, using swimming pools to supply water or aerial help. This would have been late January 7 or in the am on Wednesday, January 8.
RESPONSE:
Please be advised that the LAFD has not identified any documents that are responsive to your request, and therefore considers this request completed and closed.
LAFD #25-3712 March 13
REQUESTED: When people evacuated down Temescal Canyon Road around 8:30 p.m. on January 7 there were lines of fire trucks in the Will Rogers Beach Parking lot. When a separate group of residents evacuated early morning on January 8, there were still lines of fire trucks in the Will Rogers Beach Parking lot. Why were the trucks not up in neighborhoods putting out spot fires? Why was the Palisades High School swimming pool on Temescal (at Bowdoin) and other neighborhood pools not used to put out the fires on Radcliffe that eventually burned all the way to the bluffs. I was told that both City and County fire trucks have an eductor pump that would allow them to use swimming pool water.
I would like all emails, text messages or phone calls between LAFD Chief Captain Crowley and county officials, city emergency officials and Mayor Karen Bass to address this issue. Thank you.
RESPONSE: As an initial matter, please be aware that the CPRA governs the disclosure of public records, and only requires agencies to provide responsive, non-exempt records in their possession “upon a request for a copy of records that reasonably describes an identifiable record or records.” Govt. Code §§ 7922.530, 7920.530. The CPRA does not obligate agencies to answer questions, create new records, or compile information in response to a question or request for information. See Sander v. Super. Ct., 26 Cal.App.5th 651, 665-670 (2018) (explaining that the Act “only obligates [agencies] to provide access to those [records] which it in fact has created and retained”; it does not obligate an agency to create new records or compile data). Therefore, the Department is not required to create a new record or compile information to respond to the questions.
CALFIRE #RO22471-111525 November 15
REQUESTED: All text messages, radio calls, phone calls, reports, emails and directions given to LAFD and outside firefighters once CalFire took over command of the Palisades January 7 Fire on January 8. What were they directed to do and where were they directed to go?
RESPONSE DECEMBER 1:
Your request is under review and a 14-day extension of time is necessary under Government Code Section 7922.535(c) to determine whether your request seeks copies of disclosable public records in CAL FIRE’s possession. The extension of time is necessary due to:
7922.535(c)(1) Search for Records from Field Facilities
7922.535(c)(2) Examine a Voluminous Amount of Records Demanded in a Single Request
7922.535(c)(4) The need to extract data.
We expect to provide you with a determination on or before 12/15/2025.
RESPONSE DECEMBER 15:
This letter is to clarify what information that you are seeking from CAL FIRE.
I am trying to obtain responsive records, however based on your request I am confused by the scope of what you are searching for and am hoping to receive some clarification. Is there a timeframe for responsive documents? Based on your request, CAL FIRE is unsure if you are looking for records specifically from January 8, 2025 or a different timeframe. Additionally, while CAL FIRE does not have a statutory duty to answer questions presented in the form of a public records request, it appears you are searching specifically for records showing directions for firefighters to follow during the incident. CAL FIRE wants to assist with providing responsive records if they exist, however CAL FIRE will need search terms and a time frame in order to undertake a reasonable and diligent search. Do you have search terms that CAL FIRE can utilize as part of its internal search for responsive communications.
If you would like for CAL FIRE to proceed with your public information request, please provide clarifications within fourteen (14) days from 12/15/2025. Otherwise, CAL FIRE will consider your request withdrawn.
CTN RESPONSE to CALFIRE DEC. 15
I was told that CalFire took over as incident command at 6 a.m. on January 8. I was also told that CalFire, when they assumed command of the Palisades Fire were located at Zuma Beach in Malibu. What day and time did CalFire take over command of the Palisades Fire? Where was command located? What commands were given to firefighters when CalFire took over?
Dear Sue,
An acquaintance of mine has said about the fire, “The story is not the Fire, it’s the cover up.” And a follow up comment, “Why do good companies fail. Bad leadership.”
Your article once again shows all the holes and no admission of any responsibility by anyone. “Keep on walking. Nothing to see here.” They are still using the play book Wall Street used during the Great Financial Crisis. The GFC. “They did it, not us.” No one went to Jail, or lost a job, or paid any price for their incompetence.
On a personal note, we have moved back to Pacific Palisades this week. Rented a house in the Highlands. Just could not be happy being away from here day in and day out.
Combining the two thoughts above I am now much more inclined not to deal with rebuilding , but with rebellion. I think we, Malibu, Rivera Palisades, Brentwood ought to leave the City of L.A. Permanently. And form our own city and frankly our own County.
Now for those in the Rivera and Brentwood who say no, I would say look around. We were your buffer. Your buffer is gone. And if you haven’t got the memo, you really are next. Where is your water coming from? Are your reservoirs working and full? Is anything up to date. Has anything changed in the last 12 months? Truthfully they do not give a damn about you anymore than they did for us.
If they did they’d be leading a major rebuilding effort for us. Fixing things right and left. A post-war building effort. They are not doing any of that. There simply is no urgency, no eagerness, only complacency. There is no big drive to rebuild. Only a slow roll of sloth. Traci Parks is the absolutely rare exception in all of this.
It’s time to leave and cut our own way.
Thank you, Sue Pascoe, for your clear, courageous, and deeply responsible journalism. In a moment when many institutions appear determined to obscure the truth, your reporting has honored the lived experience of Pacific Palisades residents and given voice to facts that demand accountability.
What your editorial makes painfully clear is this: the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Fire Department have not been honest with the public about their failures. The record shows a pattern of inadequate preparation, delayed and insufficient response, a breakdown in follow-through once the fire was active, and—perhaps most disturbing—a sustained refusal to take full responsibility for a catastrophe that was foreseeable and preventable.
Thousands of lives were permanently altered. Families lost homes, histories, and a sense of safety they may never fully regain. These are not abstract losses. These are scars that residents will carry for the rest of their lives. To minimize those losses behind policy language, procedural evasions, or spokespersons reciting talking points is not leadership—it is abandonment.
Equally troubling is the City’s continued reliance on intermediaries—automated statements, public-relations staff, and legalistic responses to public-records requests—rather than direct, in-person accountability. Residents deserve to hear, face-to-face, from decision-makers who were responsible for readiness, water availability, deployment decisions, and command transitions. The real issue is not whether a policy existed; it is why common-sense firefighting actions did not occur when lives and neighborhoods were at stake.
This moment should also force a larger civic reckoning. If Los Angeles cannot—or will not—provide Pacific Palisades with adequate fire protection, infrastructure stewardship, and emergency response, then it is time to ask a difficult but necessary question: should Pacific Palisades govern itself? A city with its own fire and police departments, its own utilities, schools, and municipal services—designed for its terrain, risks, and community—may no longer be a radical idea, but a responsible one.
Again, thank you for shining light where others have preferred darkness. Accountability begins with truth, and truth begins with journalism like yours.
It is clear to all now the reason for a ONE YEAR delay in the so-called “after action report” and it its release to the public at large. It was withheld and edited multiple times after the city subjected each draft to extensive political and legal stress tests. Changing the language to head off culpability and liability is a despicable course to take…especially when you consider the scope of the disaster that occurred. PS In any other time and place the voters would rise up and kick the party in power out of office…LA is so thoroughly corrupt and corrupted at this point that the possibility of that happening is slim to none. All that aside, Merry Christmas, everybody and Happy New Year! Things WILL get better.
I sincerely hope that nobody is surprised by this. This was ALWAYS going to be the outcome of the After-Action Fire report. This type of CYA activity will continue until you vote out the current administration.
On this Christmas Eve I thank you, Sue Pasco, for not letting us be forgotten. God bless you.
I returned home from work at 12:00 on January 7th From then until 7:00 pm on I was putting out hot spots in our hillside and never saw a single firefighter, helicopter or airplane. Nothing. If you want to know why we burned down look at our Mayor, and the diverse LAFD and LADWP Chiefs annd their amazing salaries. Our home burned needlessly on the morning of Jan 8. The cherry on the top was that State Farm and Festa Insurance canceled our Fire policy, legally, in December 2024.
Amazingly, we are now permanent renters and are trying to live our best lives. We humans are resilient animals but we were seriously wronged. Merry Christmas to all.
Dear Sue,
I sit here in the Highlands, at our new residence, a rental, and now have had time to review the comments to your article. I wrote mine at 8:14 PM, on the 23rd. Bart wrote in at 10:14 PM. Then three the next day. Doug, Lea and Edward. All on Christmas Eve. Of all Bart Young said everything the best. I beat him on time, not on the quality of his prose. And Doug, Lea and Edward each said something profound and thoughtful.
I and my wife were told by a friend of ours, a President of a well known charitable institution back East, that we have shown such grace with our loss. Our reply was simple to his heartfelt compliment. How can we not show humility. Vanity has no place here. We are not alone in all of this. There are multitudes more. We are one of 5,400 other families in the Palisades. There is no pride or vanity in that. There is just a need to get answers. And look at Altadena. Twice our numbers. We all just want the truth.
We need to surround ourselves with the Bart’s, Doug’s, Lea’s and Edward’s. And especially the Sue’s. Keep going. Let’s all meet for lunch sometime. With them if possible. I’ll buy.
By the way, The Palisadian Post has gone down. Want to buy a newspaper?
Joe