So does anyone know who the AHJ was for the Lauchman fire? I read some article about its in the topanga state park but that are is LRA? This truly does matter at the end of the day and of course what if any agreements are in place. This latest lawsuit about failure to use bulldozers is another lawsuit grasping at straws.
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Hey AJ, the ownership is State Parks, but the DPA there is LRA (LAFD). Ultimately its LAFD, but SP gets a say so, especially when the fire has been declared ācontainedā and the AREP arrives for Suppression Repair. Been that way and one of the MAJOR headaches of that area.
Dealt with it 1st hand in the 2021 Palisades Fire. When it was ārunningā the dozers did work. When it stoped runing and containment begIn. I personally was ācounseledā about the Milk Vetch and where the dozers could/couldnāt go. The plant was flagged off and some fire roads couldnāt be used due to the presence of the plant.
There is SRA that LAC is responsible for and paid to protect. But that land is on the north side of the park and the dirt where the fire started is on the south side in the city.
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I cant stop coming back to the staff & staff size part of the interview..
The Board of Fire Commissioners is made up of five civilians with a staff size of just one to audit LAFD. Hudley-Hayes wants to add three more staff members, including a special investigator.
āWe are completely handicapped at this point,ā Hudley-Hayes told ABC7 On Your Side Investigates. āThose three positions are critical if, in fact, the city wants the Fire Commission to do its job.ā
My confusion boils down to this - 10 yrs ago they considered themselves successful so what has changed? They are now asking for 3 more staff positions and an investigator (why wouldnt that position be considered staff??) but why arent/cant they do staffwork themselves? AND, if a staff of one worked 10yrs ago why/what has changed now?
Btw, iām naturally skeptical of committees/commissions that cant or wont be empowered to do their own staffwork. Perhaps they need to re-configure the oversight commission so that it can get the job done without needing to build another organization/entity funded by taxpayers?! 
Edited to include this thoughtā¦
Given all the drama & social media & shenanigans & testimony from former department members it is apparent that there has been slippage/erosion in the corporate culture of the dept - that kind of thing doesnt happen overnight. So, since the Fire Commissioner Board has stated that they functioned well10yrs ago my question to them is did you see any of this coming? If so did you try to address any of it? If not, what is being done to address your blind spots - and please dont blame it on a vacant staff positionā¦
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#interesting
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Lol we cant use chainsaws? Im sure the dozer use was discussed. Got to love our litigious society.
Anyone catch the lawsuit against Genasys in eaton fire? Saying it failed to evac people? The lawyers dont care if its true or notā¦Genasys sells software, the AHJ has to hit the button to send the signal. This saddens me that a law firm does not do any research before suing a company.
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Chainsaws are definitely the make or break in mopping up root systems lol.
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The American way, sue everything, see what sticks. The lawyers make out huge and if not no repercussions.
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IA was started before 0100 (dark), it was declared fully contained at 0446 (still dark). IMO this was the first major mistake by LAFD. Feels like a rush job. Caveat I know this is just wording and not everyone bailed at 0446, but the wording changes everything.
Mop up isnāt liked by anyone, it can be gruelling and boring. But the sexy stuff isnāt always the most important, rather, from my experience, good mop up efforts are falling away. Checking for heat, digging, stirring, grinding, improving control lines, digging, stirring, rinse and repeat.
Declaring the fire fully contained says itās really no longer a threat of escape, it doesnāt mean hose lines are tied in or line is surrounding it. It does mean to your average firefighter we are basically done. While 8 acres isnāt huge, the location, values at risk, incoming fire weather, this thing shouldnāt have been a declared contained until at least a full day shift was able to work it.
Iāve worked plenty of land that falls under MIST or similar restrictions. This doesnāt prevent mop up, it just changes tactics. Iāve worked with multiple state parks, including Topanga, all of them have granted quite a bit of latitude before it was declared contained.
I think LAFD has some serious questions to ask themselves.
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As a result of seeing plenty of contained fires escape - when it came time for me to start making the call on contained/controlled there was an internal risk averseness that prevented me from calling anything contained unless/until there was hose and or hand line (jumper line counts in some fuel types) around the entire thing. Retardant line didnt count.
Calling it controlled was a different matter - depending on size & complexity & other fire activity. Thankfully i was supported by leadership and never had to revise or change my methods.
Never liked or utilized the āshaky containmentā terminology. Imo mop up/overhaul is an art that some donāt have the patience to learn, teach or practice. Thankfully most folks do take the time to do it right or mostly right at leastā¦
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āThey then canceled the dispatch for another engine that was on the way, clearing the call within 34 minutes.ā
How do you āColdtrailā and 8 acre fire in 34 minutes?
The longer this goes on, the worse it gets for the City, LAFD, and State Parks.
I get trying to focus & play the āblame gameā. However, 12 people lost their lives, the community was destroyed, and over $100 Billion of property was destroyed. The lives lost should be the driving factor and how to fix that so it NEVER happens again. But the loss of property tax revenue will take 20+ years to recover from.
The longer the DRIP, DRIP, DRIP of information continues to come out, the longer the recovery will take PERIOD!
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Oh wow!!
Literal sick feeling in my gut & my heart sinks even more every time i see a new piece of reporting!
Hopefully the Lessons Learned Center will do a facilitated learning analysis and/or case study of sorts - from start of Lachman Fire thru the aftermath of Palisades Fire. Iām betting the lessons learned would be useful to a wide range of people (citizens & fire deptās & govāt entities) for a very long time. And for sure the lives lost demand that the living learn as much as humanly possible regarding the good, bad & ugly of it all. In fact at this moment I cant think of a better way for all agencies involved to invest their preparedness funds going forward.
Their minds & attention budget are probably on litigation but they need to re-direct that pronto and dig in on learning, fact finding & sharing.. imo..
Side note..
What does it mean āwe put ladders on itā with regards to cold trailing???
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āPut ladders on itā¦ā = they sent ladder truck(s)
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Copy that.
Thats what my 1st thought was BUT i donāt equate stick crews with mop-up & cold trailing wildland fires so i thought it might have a different meaning. Im an old and slow on the uptake sometimes?!
Not to say that stick crews donāt have the skills iām just failing to see how that is supposed to inform/re-assure us that mop-up & cold trailing was accomplished. This conjures a picture in my mind of lobbing water more than it does of excavating stumpholes!! Or, perhaps ladder crews now specialize in veg fire overhaul & mop-up..
Where were the wildland/schedule b rigās? Why ladders?
#stillconfused
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Iām glad sanity and reason prevails here unlike in the YouTube comments.
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I have worked with and am personal friends with a lot of LAFD members. One of the best trained and hardest working group of firefighters in the world. The complexity of the incidents that they respond to on a daily basis are almost unparalleled on the west coast. The core training and attention to firefighting skills produces fundamentally solid firefighters.
As for the dispatch of ladder trucks.
Their staffing models pair a āpumpā with an aerial. This gives them a 6 person company split between the engine(pump) and aerial. If they arrive at a fire before an engine.. they can function as an engine and still complete support work.
By sending the ā Task Forceā they get the people and once the fire is over the TF is back in service. The goal is not to use the aerial.. it is just a means to get bodies to the fire.
It is the staffing model that they haveā¦
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I think the thing that stings the most is they have invested in thermal uas for mop-up and they failed to use it.
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Would a thermal uas been able to spot heat that is in the roots? Or, in other words, would it have it made a difference?
You are missing the point, they didnt use it. So if you fly the drone and there is no hotspots after mop up and then you have an escape, well you have the output that says we did use the technology the tax payer already paid for and it showed no heat.
Does it work? yes, is it perfect?..find me a technology that isā¦they bought the technology precisely for this application and did not deploy it.
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Does anyone know if the wet line was followed up with hand line? I havenāt found anything showing a hand line.
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Imo..
Itās remains beyond troubling to me that lafd decision makers are trying to re-define what hidden heat & rekindle means. Ive said before itās like they want us to believe its some mysterious hard to observe phenomenon like bigffoot/ufoās - when in fact it is not a mysterious phenomenon at all & it is quite a predictable and expected component within the wildland fire environment.
Iād really like to hear what the protocols are for utilizing their fire & heat finding tech on wildland incidents. Who makes the call to deploy or not to deploy it and why no use on Lachman Fire. Seems like the people of Palisades deserve to know that layer of the onion at leastā¦
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