Palisades Fire taken January 8. Photo: CALFIRE
Having skimmed through the LAFD 70 page after action report it is clear we need an independent report with exact times and participants. We know LAFD’s response was neither rapid nor ongoing with the bulk of the ground crews pulled out on the afternoon of January 7 around 4 p.m. under orders issued from the Incident Command.
I was in the Palisades at 9:30 a.m. on January 8, walking up Chautauqua where I put out a fire at 14960 Alva Drive using a garden hose. I drove through town seeing only one fire company from a different jurisdiction in the Huntington packing up.
As I drove through to my home on 650 Lachman, I witnessed multiple homes smoldering, fully engulfed, partially burning. Other than the one engine company there were no firefighters. I put out another fire, after seeing the ruins of my home, squirting water from the wreckage, saving the upper Bel Air Bay club using water from a bird bath, dirt and drinking water in my truck as there were no hose bibs. I didn’t have tools to open the hydrant four feet from the fire.
Driving back up Arno as the driveway was blocked, I turned down Sunset where I drove through the cars abandoned at sunset and Palisades Drive. The first LAFD engine I saw was in Vons parking lot spraying water on a building. I turned down PCH and saw many, many fire trucks from multiple jurisdictions sitting in the Will Rogers Beach parking lot. Sitting while my neighbors burned.
The LAFD report is an affront to my lived experience and will be discovered to be an inadequate report sprinkled with half-truths to obfuscate their utter failure to perform their sworn duty to the city of Los Angeles and it’s citizens.
we need to be asking about the blanket government immunity laws that shield LAFD from accountability in this massive failure. It is not ok that I loose my home of 42 years and everything in it and I am not able to directly sue LAFD for their gross negligence. I want to feel safe again in PP but unless they are held to the same accountability standard as private entities like SoCalEdison etc, they will continue to fail us.
Did Sue Pasco write this story and put out a fire at 14960 Alva on 1-8-25?
I want to personally thank whoever put out that Alva fire since that house is very close to mine on Toyopa and putting out that fire may have saved my house from burning. John Moreland
Amen to that! I, too, lost my home of 52 years and everything in it. I am a senior and it doesn’t make sense for me to rebuild, a project that would take years and which still would not bring back the home I loved and all my priceless treasures, photos,… It breaks my heart to lose my community, one that I have been a part of for over half of my life.
LAFD may be immune but it’s parent LA City is not.