The initial fire, if anyone in the City had acted with urgency, might have been contained. This was taken from Lachman Lane at the beginning of the fire.
A Topanga resident captured this early shot of the fire at 10:38 a.m.
Had one official taken the lead or been in charge of the initially small brush fire that broke out in the Palisades Highlands on January 7, Los Angeles would not be looking at an estimated $53.8 billion in damage, with 5,419 homes destroyed, 764 damaged and close to 20,000 people left homeless.
Many media records requests are still pending or being withheld due to ongoing investigations, but on February 19, KTLA received 357 pages of text messages to and from Chief Kristin Crowley of the LAFD during the critical days of the Palisades Fire and its aftermath.
From the text messages released, it appears there was a lack of urgency between the Los Angeles City Emergency Management Department’s Carol Parks, Fire Chief Kristin Crowley and the Mayor’s office, with Marqueece Harris-Dawson in charge.
The brush fire in the Palisades Highlands was reported by one Palisadian as early as 10:25 on 911, who wrote, “they told me they already had several calls.”
“Two brush fires in the city. Palisades and Hollywood,” Crowley wrote to someone at 10:35 a.m.
“Sending over staff now,” she texted Parks minutes later. “I would recommend level 2.”
A resident, who was at the top of the Highlands has a time-stamped video taken at 10:54 a.m.
Twenty minutes later, a subsequent video taken at 11:11 a.m. shows LAFD Firefighters from Firestation 69 at the top of the hill. A firefighter tried to hook up a hose and shouted out he only had 50 percent pressure. Later the firefighters would tell a Palisadian that they knew they were “f*cked.”
“Not good,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Tony Marrone texted at 11:18 a.m.
“No,” Crowley responded.
Text messages show that Marqueece Harris-Dawson was unavailable for a call from Crowley at 11:27.
Six minutes later, Parks wrote to Crowley, “The EOC is in need of leadership. Pls advise who from your department can respond to the EOC asap,” with Crowley responding that a chief was en route.
“Anything else you can send us, we will take it,” Crowley wrote to fire officials in neighboring counties at 12:02 p.m. “Starting to lose homes and people trapped.”
At 2:27 p.m., Crowley texted a fire official, “Can you send me the number … of resources and type assigned to the palisades incident?”
At 3 p.m., Crowley received a text stating, “Marqueece here Chief. At command post, eager to connect.”
Hours later at 7:19 p.m., Parks texted, “EOC Directors are recommending that we move to Level 1,” adding that the Level 1 status would start the next morning. At that point most of the homes on the Via de las Olas bluffs were still standing, but by morning when the City went into high alert, the entire neighborhood, as well as the Alphabet Streets were destroyed.
At 7:22 p.m., Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Chief Executive Officer Janisse Quiñones asked Crowley if “we can safely access this point,” adding that “we got evacuated before installing a reg station” and that otherwise, “we will run out of water in about 2 hours.”
Residents on Paseo Miramar, adjacent to the Highlands, ran out of water, shortly after 10:30 a.m. on January 7.
Lack of water was an issue, and no one was fighting the fires on January 8, when many of the churches, commercial buildings and residences burned. There is no explanation why the swimming pools were not used to put out the sport fires on January 8 and 9.
One resident wrote “I read after the fires, that Karen Bass said her office or the fire department worked an algorithm that said if firetrucks left the rest of LA to go save the Palisades, the losses (heart attack victims needing a firetruck because its regulation is they go with the paramedics) would be more dangerous than the losses suffered by the Palisades. In other words, the city purposely did not call firetrucks in to save us for the lame excuse the need throughout the city was greater than our need. There is some regulation requiring all ambulances to be accompanied by a fire truck. Couldn’t that have been suspended on those few days?”
(Editor’s note: Karen Bass takes no responsibility because she was not here. When this editor goes out of town and leaves her pets with a sitter, she goes over the plans, when they walk, what they eat and what time, the number for the vet and what to do in an emergency. One would have expected Bass to at least treat the residents of Los Angeles as well as dogs are treated.).
Marqueece Harris-Dawson – representing Mayor Karen Bass.
Unavailable on a weekday (in the morning) doing what?
Thank you, Sue, for this great, great journalism. The ending section is unimaginable.
Just astounding to know that, with the proper immediate attention to a situation that the fire department already know could be a significant danger–it could have been put out before it ever grew.
And that fire trucks didn’t come because it was more important to accompany an ambulance in the city.
Someone that read this article sent me this:
“Krishna Thangavelu all the leadership is incompetent. They should’ve been pre-deployed in the Palisades in the Highlands. They should’ve been like snipers in the military stalking their prey, “The Fire” they should’ve been on that immediately, but instead delayed response and now we have no town”.
Instead of a proactive and active posture of #killfire… we had terrible judgement calls. And if these same people are in charge of recovery I would say I have exactly zero confidence in our current “leadership”. Follow them at your own risk.
Most leaders whose bad judgement creates calamity have the grace to resign and quit the field. But the bad judgment of these people will make them just hang on longer and create even more chaos.
Great reporting. Heartbreaking to read. There was no leadership. We were all
Left to burn without basic emergency services. Criminal.
I having been saying from day 1 LAFD abandoned Pacific Palisades. The Emergency Operation Center (EOC) should of been staffed immediately. LAFD failed;
1) Pre-deploy Strike Team Resources for Red Flag weather Warning.
2) Request Strike Team Resources from Regions 1, 4 and 5 for immediate need
3) Station 23 was at Will Rogers Beach and Station 69 were at the Entrada Stairs that why it took 18+ minutes to arrive in the Highlands.
4) Fire Engines failed to use “Water Eductor” device to suck water out of swimming pools when hydrants went down.
Unbelievable that Crowley tried to appeal her termination, which evidently wasn’t even a termination but a demotion. WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY OUR TAX DOLLARS TO EMPLOY CROWLEY!!! She should have the shame and decency to step away! Her lack of foresight and preparation contributed to destroying our homes and our town. The quote from this article that is the most compelling to our family, as victims, is: “There is no explanation why the swimming pools were not used to put out the sport fires on January 8 and 9.” We watched on Channel 7 as a single home in our townhouse complex, the Upper Woodies, ignited at 3pm on January 8th. There was zero firefighter response. The entire Upper and Lower Woodies complex of approximately 80 homes was allowed to free-burn, next to our full swimming pool, and right next to the empty Santa Ynez reservoir. Our family sent in a statement last night in support of Crowley’s termination, which was upheld at her shameful appeal today. We demand the termination of Quinones! And then we want Bass to resign! And then we want a full investigation, specifically into the policy to allow a free-burn of homes and businesses in the Palisades on the 8th, 9th, and 10th, often with full pools on or near the properties. Various factions have already created well-crafted excuses, supporting the left or right, for the failures in preparation for and decisive action on the 7th. We demand an explanation for the policy of free-burn on the 8th, 9th, and 10th. We have heard no official explanation for this! And we believe that the explanation will expose the true motivations for the criminal negligence that has resulted in deaths, lives in disarray, and loss of property.
Excellent reporting despite extremely hard circumstances for you and our town; your news has been timely, well researched, clearly explained and very much appreciated. I would imagine that there are many, many time stamped photos and videos that were taken on Jan 7-8; the ones I took from the Las Casas loop certainly correlate with the timeline you are reporting. It is very hard to live with the terrible results, huge losses, and unnecessary deaths that occurred as a consequence of this unprecedented fire, but it is worse to not know the what/where/when/why and how of it all. Thank you for continuing to pursue answers, not excuses.
In the 11:11am Jan 7 video, we’re facing south at 1210 Piedra Morada Dr which is 200 feet from the north side of the (locked) Fire Road linking 16712 Monte Hermoso Dr with the top of Lachman Lane.
The Topanga photographer (capturing the second photo here) apparently stood at 21802 Saddle Peak Rd, Topanga.
Is it any wonder why leadership either characterizes this as an unstoppable act of god that was pre-ordained to wipe out our town? Stunningly lackadaisical, uncaring response. removing them all from leadership should be act one in a long series of actions against our ‘leadership’