Home » Amid dangerous winds in 2011, LAFD engines stood ready. That didn’t happen this time – Jobsmaa.com

Amid dangerous winds in 2011, LAFD engines stood ready. That didn’t happen this time – Jobsmaa.com

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Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles fire officials faced dangerous winds that could drive flames across hillsides and canyons and rip through neighborhoods from Malibu to the Pacific Palisades to the San Fernando Valley.

The National Weather Service has issued red flag warnings for a 90 mph Doomsday tornado. Forecasters described the impending storm as a once-in-five-to-10-year disaster.

So the LAFD began marshalling its defenses in the days before the winds arrived, taking dramatic steps across the department. Couldn't hire last week A lack of recent rain has kept wind warnings at or worse than in late November 2011 ahead of the Palisades fire.

With the storm expected to hit on Dec. 1 of that year, the Times learned through interviews and internal department records that LAFD commanders ordered at least 40 additional fire engines to stations near high-risk areas, including the Palisades. .

More than 20 of the additional rigs were already deployed to those stations and 18 “ready reserve” engines supplement the regular fire brigade in such emergencies, records and interviews show.

“We couldn't take any chances with this because the stakes were too high,” said former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, led the agency's preparations in 2011.

Jan. 7 Lofty should have made preparations before the Palisades fire, such as overseeing the hiring of commanders, Butler said.

“Even though the weather service declared it a life-threatening wind event, they underestimated the threat,” he said. “In my 35 years in the fire service, I've never heard the weather service use those words. It was a flashing danger sign.

The weather service has advised that the strongest winds since 2011 are expected on January 7 and the following day. Ryan Kittel said the warnings were even worse because the forests had been particularly dry due to the lack of rain in recent months. Meteorologist for Meteorological Service.

“The plants were very dry and the wind was very strong — it was a very bad combination,” Kittel said.

As The Times reported last week, the LAFD decided not to tap several dozen available engines to join the fight against wind-fueled fires. A document obtained by The Times shows that commanders “did not” want to use the nine ready reserve engines to supplement the nine others that had been stationed at Valley and Hollywood the morning before the fire.

Officials said they moved more engines “first thing in the morning” to cover Northeast L.A. No additional engines were sent to the Palisades.

The department chose to have about 1,000 firefighters on duty rather than going home in the hours before a fire. That decision made it difficult to quickly deploy unused engines after fires started to burn out of control, former LAFD chiefs told the Times.

Fire Chief Christine Crowley and other top officials defended their decisions and said they had to deal with limited resources while continuing to handle 911 calls unrelated to the fire, which more than doubled the day it started on Jan. 7. . LAFD officials said the firefighting effort was hampered by budget constraints and low water levels for some fire hydrants.

“We followed the system. We stepped up where we could,” Crowley said at a news conference Wednesday. “Our firefighters were pushed in and they did everything they could.”

But the department faced the same challenges in 2011, and that didn't stop commanders from dedicating more engines to fire zones before the winds roared into the city, according to records and interviews.

When that happened, the wind caused downed power lines and trees and caused other damage, but they didn't spark any wildfires. Butler said in 2011 he considered his preparation routine for such a frightening wind forecast and had taken similar precautions on about 30 occasions during his years with the LAFD.

In most cases, no fires break out, Butler said, but commanders can't gamble with that outcome. He cited longstanding LAFD directives that require commanders to put everything in place to attack brush fires “hard and fast.”

Former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford told The Times he would have taken the same approach to last week's air threat as Butler did in 2011. 2024 to his current position as Emergency and Crisis Management Coordinator for the US Capitol.

He said the department should have deployed at least 25 engines the morning before the Palisades fire and moved others to potential fire zones. Recalling the outgoing shift of firefighters that day would have made more engine crews available, Crawford said.

“I would have been very offensive,” he added.

Because of the punishing winds, “You are going to have a big fire that day. But would it have been fatal? Could it have been the most destructive in Los Angeles history? I don't think so.

“Give yourself the best chance to minimize the damage.”

Crowley did not respond to an interview request for this story. She and a spokesman did not respond to a list of questions from The Times about the LAFD's preparations and response to the Palisades fire.

Asked about the planning decisions at a news conference Wednesday, Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged that “the buck always stands with me” but deferred questions to Crowley. Bass' press office did not respond to an email requesting an interview with him for this story.

Vice Chief Richard Fields, who was responsible for personnel and equipment decisions ahead of the Palisades fire, defended his deployment plan as “appropriate for an immediate response.” When asked about more robust products in 2011, he said the industry's fleet of operable machines was huge then.

“Today, I have a zero-reserve fleet,” Fields said. “Zero, due to the number of tools under faulty repair.”

However, the Times found that the department had more than 40 engines available to crews, and officials had only selected five of them before the fire.

Known locally as the 200 series engines, they look like any other engine and are stationed around town, usually attached to hook and ladder trucks that don't carry water. During non-emergency hours, only one engineer is on duty. When a forest fire is needed, four firefighters are carried.

Crowley said that in a “perfect world” he would have been staffed with ready reserve mechanics, but budget cuts that eliminated half of the LAFD's mechanic positions have left many out of work.

But only two of the nine ready-stock machines listed in the planning document — which officials said were “no” registrations for use — were out of service and needed to be replaced, officials said. Seven were pressed into service at one point or another – most of them after the fire was ignited. Some were expelled from the maintenance shop.

Out of a total of 195 engines at LAFD, 40 were broken during the Palisades fire, fire officials said. They said that if they had been corrected, it would have made a difference.

Butler and other former LAFD chiefs said that's why the department hasn't used and used all of the 200 series engines available.

“The engines in the shop weren't playing with what they could have done,” Butler said.

Palisades Fire Nearly 24,000 acres burned Officials estimate that more than 3,500 homes and other structures were destroyed. At least 10 people died in the fire, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office and Sheriff's Department.

The Eaton Fire, which started after the Palisades caught fire in the Altadena area, has blackened more than 14,000 acres, destroyed about 9,000 homes and other structures and killed 17 people, officials say.

“It's important to learn a lesson from this and not repeat what happened,” Butler said of the command's decisions. “I can guarantee you that the firefighters on the ground are giving 100 percent of their effort despite all these challenges.”

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