A damning new Palisades Fire report stops short of blaming any one person or agency, but found Los Angeles sent firefighters home despite dangerous winds, while some residents didn’t get an evacuation alert until 40 to 90 minutes after homes began burning.
asserted
homes → stop → alert
It says the destruction “was the result of multiple interconnected factors rather than any single decision, event, or system failure.”
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destruction → say → factors
Still, the Los Angeles Fire Department takes the hardest hits.
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Department → take → hits
The independent review was completed by UL Research Institutes’ Fire Safety Research Institute at the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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review → complete → Newsom
The delay in warning residents is one of the report’s starkest findings.
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delay → warn → findings
Some residents closest to where the fire started didn’t get an evacuation alert until roughly 40 to 90 minutes after homes had already begun burning, investigators found.
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investigators → start → alert
At 10:46 a.m., 16 minutes after the fire was reported, a fire helicopter radioed that flames would hit homes “within minutes.”
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flames → report → minutes
By the time an LAFD assistant chief radioed for an “evacuation all the way down to PCH” ,Pacific Coast Highway, at 11:29 a.m., spot fires were already burning on both sides of a main road out of the neighborhood, according to the report.
uncertain
fires → radio → report
The city’s first evacuation order didn’t go out until 12:09 p.m.
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order → go → p.m.
The delay appears to have been caused by outdated manual processes and software transitions, along with a fast-moving, wind-driven fire, the report says.
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report → appear → fire
The city was still switching to new alert software.
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city → switch → software
Staffers drew evacuation zones by hand from street names read over the radio, and at times had to check how streets were spelled, investigators found.
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investigators → draw → times
LAFD officials were also “cautious in issuing evacuation notices,” investigators wrote, because those decisions “are often subject to public and governmental scrutiny.”
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The report called California’s public alert process “overly complex.”
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report → issue → process
Older adults and people with limited mobility were disproportionately affected, the report found.
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report → affect → mobility
Many deaths came as chances to evacuate were “limited, delayed, or declined.”
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chances → come → ?
In one case in nearby Malibu, a relative told authorities “no evacuation order was given” as they watched the fire close in on the home, according to accounts compiled in the report.
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fire → tell → report
She pleaded with him to leave.
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She → plead → him
He stayed.
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He → stay → ?
The problems started before the fire did, the report found.
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report → start → ?
LAFD sent its outgoing shift home on the morning of Jan. 7, 2025, instead of keeping those firefighters on duty, despite the dangerous winds.
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LAFD → send → winds
The department added just three engines at city expense and staffed them with fire inspectors pulled from other duties, according to the report.
uncertain
department → add → report
The city’s staffing and recall moves “did not follow their own written procedures and appeared to be largely budget constraint-driven,” investigators wrote.
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investigators → follow → procedures
Los Angeles County took a different approach that morning, according to the report.
uncertain
County → take → report
The county fire department kept its outgoing shift on duty, doubling its force from about 1,500 firefighters to nearly 3,000.
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department → keep → 3,000
That let the county put more than 20 extra backup engines into service.
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county → let → service
Once the fire broke out, LAFD’s attempt to call in off-duty firefighters unraveled, the report found.
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report → break → firefighters
A recall announcement broadcast on TV and radio reached far beyond its intended audience to include “anyone with firefighting experience,” according to the report.
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announcement → broadcast → report
The department’s internal staffing phone number went out with it.
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number → go → it
Thousands of calls from around the world jammed those lines for more than 48 hours, investigators found.
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investigators → jam → hours
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who ousted then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley weeks after the fire, said the report “confirms much of what we already knew.”
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we → oust → what
“That is why I put in place new leadership at the Los Angeles Fire Department,” Bass said in a statement to The Post.
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Bass → put → Post
“Under Chief Jaime Moore, 92% of the recommendations from LAFD’s own internal review have been put in place,” Bass said, and the department “is far better prepared to fight large-scale urban wildfires today.”
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department → put → wildfires
She said the heads of the LAPD, the Department of Water and Power and the city’s Emergency Management Department assured her “every recommendation in this report will be addressed.
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recommendation → say → report
“We must use these lessons learned to strengthen preparedness and help every community be better equipped to respond to the growing, climate-driven wildfire threat,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement to the California Post.
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Newsom → use → Post
Jeremy Padawer, 52, a toymaker who lost his Palisades home in the fire, said he wasn’t surprised the report and lawmakers are spreading the blame around.
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lawmakers → lose → blame
“This was a disaster of their making,” he told the California Post.
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he → tell → Post
“What made me angry wasn’t the fact that a fire burned my house down.
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fire → make → house
That made me sad,” Padawer said.
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Padawer → make → ?
“They said it was climate change.
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it → say → ?
They said it was human impact.
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it → say → ?
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
