Los Angeles — Questions are mounting regarding why hundreds of Los Angeles Fire Department personnel were initially held back from racing to the scene of the Palisades Fire when it first broke out last week in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
CBS News has confirmed that as the Palisades Fire started at about 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 7, only 19 fire engines were pre-deployed to the area.
But it’s unclear how many, if any, were sent to the first neighborhood that caught fire. For the first four hours that a CBS News crew was on scene while flames torched homes, crew members did not see any LAFD firefighters in the immediate area.
“We will get you the number, as to where, I think it’s important that we talk about the pre-deployment side,” LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley told CBS News on Wednesday when asked how many personnel were battling the blaze in its early hours.
Crowley first blamed budget cuts for the lack of resources. But as many as 1,000 LAFD firefighters were not initially activated, according to the Los Angeles Times. Some were not asked to stay past their shifts, and others were assigned to non-fire-related 911 calls, officials confirmed.
It would be another eight hours before LAFD sent out an urgent message for all off-duty personnel to call in with their availability. It even requested that CBS News Los Angeles issue the same message on-air.
Both Crowley and L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone say the extreme Santa Ana winds overwhelmed them. The wildfires have burned more than 60 square miles, killed at least 25 people and destroyed more than 12,000 structures.
A house seemingly untouched by the Palisades Fire stands on a hill amid the charred remains of other homes destroyed by the fire as National Guard soldiers guard a checkpoint below in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2025. / Credit: ETIENNE LAURENT/AFP via Getty Images
Devastation like this could become the new normal due to climate change.
“It’s the actions that we take prior to that wind event ever starting that are gonna make the most difference, because we all realize there’s not enough fire trucks, there’s not enough firefighters, to extinguish that fast-moving, wind-driven community conflagration that we saw on Tuesday,” Marrone told CBS News.
The firefight begins “long before” the flames arrive, Marrone said, adding that “we need to be held accountable.”
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