I am interested to hear what this forum thinks about this press conference and how the actual Pallisades fire was represented
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If you are specifically asking about the cause I can buy that. As a young FF in TCU we had a ten acre fire one night called Peoria there was an oak stump that we put 2000 gallons of water with wet water into it. 4445 cut line around the perimeter. 5 days later we were on Peoria 2 went almost 2000 acres. Long story short, it burned through the root structure and came out below the dozer line.
Spending time as a fire investigator I saw this happen a couple of times.
Fast forward to the Eaton Fire as one of the FBANs we were interviewed by LAC, LASO, ATF, FBI and USFS investigators they were not taking any chances on not getting it right.
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No Paywall article
LA County Report
https://ktla.com/news/california/wildfires/palisades-fire-lafd-report/
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In reflecting on that entire thing AND what iām now seeing and hearing since the arrest was made public - iām taken right back to where and what i felt as all the un-nicery and politicizing and finger pointing was being so loudly amplified & broadcast by all parties involved. Imo then & now - everyone from top to bottom - White House to Governors House to Mayors House to the Firehouse HQ gave all of us watching and those responding a very shiny example of what wrong looks & sounds like.
But, wanna know who provided an equally shining example of what right looks like? It was the boots on the actual ground / those in the actual arena. Despite the energy sucking un-nicery unfolding around & above them by the so called āadults in chargeā they all got after it like there was no tomorrow - in the face a literal āhurricane force fireā un-nicery and did all they could with the tools/training they were given AND they didnāt partake in the bs. As a taxpayer in this state iām so very thankfully that ALL OF THEM held up the core values of Duty, Respect & Integrity that many of us strive to live by - on or off duty & even in retirement.
last thing - i really hope that āweā stop feeding into (for political sake or the mediaās sake or public sake) some perceived need to satiate ANYONES desire for real time in the moment AARās while fires and/or other emergencies are unfolding. That bugs the heck out of me to no end. We will always get to the āwhyā of it all AFTER the incident is under control and with some time to process and reflect on the good, bad, ugly & what to do better going forward.
#my2cents
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Talk about a wordy & terse document!! Thereās allot to chew on in there.
Of course there arenāt enough hours in the day to do all the things i and/or others would like to see moving forward - however, in these and other high potential for un-nicery areas - iād like to see local deptās & local govāt take a more forward thinking and proactive roll in training the locals/community members (that includes the press/media) who live and report news in these areas. Do not farm that responsibility out to so called fire safe councils or other entities. Im talking start with school children & teachers then the boy/girl scouts and then the other adults in the area - thinking along the line of standing up civil defense corpās type of model in these places for times like this and/or the other catastrophic things that will happen again in the future.
Policy & Budget aside, lets face it - the more humans know about what could and will happen again on the >=97% days (low frequency high consequence days) the better off they (and our responders) will be. Knowledge = Safety.
Put another way..
āWeā are gonna keep populating the dangerous spaces - no matter what - as proven over and over again. If more humans got & understood the āfire feelingā on those windy/fire days AND knew where to go AND knew who was/wasnt going to be coming to help and why that help might not be there anytime soon - the better off weāre all gonna be. Schools, hospitals, old folks homes et al, should be the priority for our 1st responders in those conditions - fire fighting/suppression not so much. Things like this need to be better understood by everyone living in the places where fire / flood & quakes are a threat. Our 1st responders shouldnāt be the only ones who realize, understand or appreciate these facts and potential consequences.
Sorry for the rant!
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By charging the man who started the fire on Jan 1st, with the responsibility for the blow up/rekindle on Jan 7th, LAFD is effectively admitting they messed up the full suppression of the first fire. ā¦ and from the read of the Palisades AA report, they only stayed on the fire for about 12 hours, didnāt leave anyone to finish mop-up and no one went out to check the burn in the 6 days after the fire, despite predictions of wind. Sounds like the Tunnel fire to me, and a ready-made defense strategy for deflection of blame.
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Because i didnt see rekindle addressed in the recommendations/lessons learned section Im gonna go back and read for a 3rd time - until then - i cant speak to the legal stuff although i get what you are saying/implying regarding blame & defense.
Not that it matters - i think 4 things are significant regarding rekindles, blame, defense, fire protocol/procedures.
1 - how we treat / entertain the conversation(s) surrounding fires re-kindling is important and easy to run amok.
2 - How we treat / entertain conversations regarding what thresholds are required to call a fire contained, controlled, moped up and/or out is important and nuanced - also easy to run that train off the tracks!
3 - How we discuss the doās, dontās, couldaās & shouldaās of staffing during and after mop-up AND patrolling vs staffing after contain/control or mop-up is also complex and nuanced - just like the fire environment.
4 - Re-kindles happen and for sure should be analyzed with fine tooth comb in order to learn the why/what/how if at all possible. Imo, itās equally important to remember that āusing hindsight (the tendency to see past events as more predictable than they were) can lead to overconfidence, poor decision-making, self-blame, and an inability to learn from mistakes, as it creates an illusion of predictabilityā because hindsight is always 20/20.
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Hindsight as to rekindles, most of us have to much experience (one is too many). To my experience, most veg fires, big or small, have some kind of follow up based on exposure, weather and fuels in the proximity. One would think with a fire in the area it was and with predicted hurricane force winds in high temperature would indicate at lest a drive by prior to the severe weather hitting.
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YES!! ZERO argument from me on that!
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After a 3rd read of the doc - focusing this time on the Lachman Fire & lessons learned section(s) there is no mention of or analysis given to the rekindle of the Lachman Fire. It is not until the beginning of the āPalisades 1st 30 min sectionā where it is stated that a fire capt called Station 32 to report that the āLachman Fire started again.ā
This seems odd for more than one reason (like why call a station b4 ECC to report?) and imo a missed or overlooked opportunity for transparency, honesty and critical self analysis that all of āusā would / should expect to see from agency leadership & investigators - no mater the agency or outcomes. Probably not alone in thinking that the rekindle omission isnāt the only point in the AAR that has me scratching my head. It will be interesting to see where - if anywhere - that the conversation(s) go on this forum. Many SMEās & many opinions here..
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With all of the photos of the lachman fire that are floating around including ones taken later on the 1st that CBS shared that show hotspots in a wet burn youād think they would address the rekindle. someone walking around with a handheld thermal imager could have found that hot spot. I wish they would have stated what they would do differently to reduce the possibility of rekindles in the future.
Iād like to see the dispatch log the 2 days after because thereās a few videos showing it smoldering because I wander if the people taking the videos called it in
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Having not put feet on that piece of ground iām going by assumption so please excuse my blind spots when i opine that..
1 - I too am very curious as to dispatch logs and/or any smoke check calls after IA troops left the Lachman at 1630 on the day it was started. Also, was the fire put into a patrol status? If so did units find and/or deal with smokes on those patrols?
2 - Id think given the location and high density population close by there would have been extra awareness by responders to deal with any/all visible heat and/or troublesome pockets that could hide heat - or else deal with a million calls from locals to 911 for āpolitical smoke checksā.
3 - Hypothetically speaking, even If only 5 - 8 acres (as reported on watch duty) one might think that given the location (slope/bowl) there may have been some degree of ālob water / surround and drown from a distanceā attack - with not so much cold trailing OR scanning with a heat finder / ir device. It has been my experience on more than one occasion that small fires sometimes have deceptive abilities such as giving a false sense of being out if no obvious or heavy smoke/heat is showing.
Edit: I know #3 above sounds douchy and makes me one of the āoutside the arenaā keyboard commanders criticizing those inside. I dont meant to come across that way - it is a trap (small fire-itus) that iāve personally fallen into and observed others in just about every department fall into at one time or another. Also, i want to be clear that i firmly and confidently understand that NONE of the Lachman responders went to that fire with intent to create a situation where it rekindles later and starts a bigger fireā¦
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I give you an upvote for your willingness to state the obvious lesson to be learned by all here and for future firefighter leaders etc, initial attack fires must be fully extinguished and monitored before declared controlled.
For the city leaders and others to accept stuff like this just happens because it was underground negates culpability and therefore dismisses the very important lessons to be learned.
I am not being a armchair chief or looking for blame, just going off the story and agreeing that there are lessons to be learned and I hope it gets all the attention it is due .
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Back in May, we rode bikes out to the origin of the rekindle/ignition point for the Palisades Fire for our Danger in Plain Sight video series. The rekindle spot isnāt anywhere near a major road. There are some drone shots of the area in our video.
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Cal Fire had a Team heavily involved in this case since the day after the fire was reported.
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All very good points from everyone. As i watched the press conference, what i saw was damage control. It was widely known among fire service leaders in Ca that this was from the original fire almost from the beginning.
They stated in the press conference that brush fires cant be controlled they can only be suppressed, which leads to their civil defense strategy. I have in my many years of wildland fire control had fires be very stubborn. Lessons learned led to diligence. We must not get hung up on terminology like control, out, patrol status, no visible smoke, etc. Just put it out even if it takes more time than you want to dedicate to it.
What i found strange in the press conference like others have said was what was NOT discussed and what was minimized.
However you paint this picture, it will forever be remembered as the most disastrously tragic rekindle in history. Should the suspect be prosecuted and be held accountable? Absolutely. Evil does walk among us.
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When I read the report I kept looking for Patrol but never found it. I would presume they patrol for 2 days before calling it out, like we do with USFS.
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I cover targeted mop up uas operations and palisades in this presentation. This was about 6 weeks ago in DC. LAFD uses this same platform (Nova not TAK). Was it used? All of this will come out im sure in the trial. A defense attorney is going to shift blame to LAFD. If LAFD can say look we used uas thermal tech here are the results we did all we could they have some defense. What I find crazy is the folks who filmed palisades 2/3 days later with active smokes call them in to 911 or just post to instagram?
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