Incompetence, Confusion and Errors Marked LA City Fire Response Just Before Eastern Malibu Was Destroyed

A 29-year-old man who had been working as an Uber driver … who was obsessed with images of fire … has been charged with setting the Palisades Fire.

But that is not the lede story this morning. 

The lede story this morning is the incredible incompetence and confusion … and heroism and hard work ,… exhibited by the Los Angeles city fire department on January 7th… as the Palisades Fire incubated and blew into Malibu.

One tenth of our city burned down … after the LA FD showed unbelievable confusion .. incompetence..  and close calls.

The City of Los Angeles released its self-examination of how their city fire department did during the Palisades Fire. 

The Palisades Fire reignited at 10:29 that wind-blasted morning … we will call that minute zero. 

Minute 0 – ‘Sunset Fire’ Was Actually 10 Miles Away In Hills Above Sunset Strip

From the get go … there was organizational confusion on the LA City Fire radios … 

A separate brushfire in the Hollywood Hills had been burning for a few minutes … it was called “Sunset Command” on the radios…

And that confused the firefighters sent to the Palisades … who were fighting the Palisades Fire on the Hollywood Fire frequencies.

The presence of President Joe Biden in the Beverly Hills area … incredibly … delayed fire choppers from getting permission that day to take off … to fight the fire near Hollywood. 

The fire department had to get FBI agents to call the Secret Service and the FAA.

Those choppers were quickly diverted to the Palisades Fire … a piece of good luck.

But LA TV choppers … a critical information source for the general public during fire emergencies … could not get permission to fly the fire. 

Minute 63 – Evacation Requested In Palisades, But It Was Not Issued For 35 Minutes

At minute 63 … there was an evacuation requested by a Palisades incident commander.

But no evacuation order was issued until Minute 98.

And on the ground … more confusion …

The staging location for fire trucks was positioned directly in the path of the evacuation route.  It was overrun by flames within the first 30 minutes.  

Without clear direction … residents acted spontaneously and attempted to drive south and west. LAPD told evacuees  to abandon their vehicles and evacuate on foot: run to the beach.

Some panicked drivers drove over firefighters’ hose lines and nearly hit firefighters manning them.

A decision was made for a LAC bulldozer to clear the abandoned vehicles from the road, allowing firefighters to access the communities and continue with structure defense.

Arriving Fire Trucks Told To Stage At Same Place Parents Were Picking Up School Kids

The staging location … where arriving fire trucks were supposed to report … was at a fire station in the middle of the only road out … packed with people fleeing the fire. 

Parents of kids from Palisades-area schools had been instructed to go there to reunite with their children.

The first formal evacuation order did not go out to cellphones until Minute 97.

At minute 151 … the command post number 2 at Gladstone’s was overrun with smoke and ash … they had to move the command post to Will Rogers Beach … wchih then had to be protected by fire trucks from being overrun with flames as well.

A high altitude airplane that was desperately needed to provide real time pictures and heat maps of the fire was grounded by high winds in the Inland Empire … a backup plane had to be flown down from Sacramento. 

It did not start supplying critical data until minute 222.

Minute 225 – Bulldozers Clear Cars From Sunset Blvd

At minute 225 … the decision was made to clear the path for arriving fire trucks by bulldozing gridlocked cars out of the way at Sunset and Palisades Highlands.

There were multiple calls for trapped patients, hikers needing rescue, and fires in the backyards of houses. The incident organization would change again over the next few hours leading to confusion among some resources operating under the current organization.

Minute 515 – People Stuck In Elevator Across From Gelsons

At Minute 515 … incredibly, 9 hours in to the fire … people who were evacuating a multistory apartment building across from Gelson’s in the Palisades got stuck in an elevator.

Firefighters were taken off the brushfire to protect the big building as the area around it burned … and the trapped people were extricated from the elevator.

A nursing home in the heart of Pacific Palisades was not evacuated until Minute 690 … that’s 11 and a half hours into the fire. 

40 patients, 14 of whom were bed ridden … needed to be evacuated. 

By dawn multiple structures around the facility had burned to the ground. 

All 64 lives were saved.

LA City Fire Jams Its Own Phone Lines

The LA City Fire Department lacked an effective process to bring in off duty firefighters. 

A phone number was given to LA TV stations to broadcast for reinforcements. 

This lead to off-duty firemen from across the nation jamming the phone lines … for 2 days … to volunteer to help.

By the evening, there enough LA City firefighters called in  … but the Department lacked the fire trucks for them.

Pickup trucks were outfitted with hoses and sent into the area with fresh crews.  Reporters in LA were not given information … and they also jammed the news office’s phone lines …. Unable to help the public understand what was happening … and what they needed to do.

Incident Command Post Moves 3 Times, Overcome By Smoke 3 Times

By 6 that evening … incident command post was relocated from the fire station to Gladstones … to Will Rogers beach … and at all three places it was nearly overrun with fire.

Water ran out … and the report noted that many homeowners continued to operate their automatic sprinklers to wet the vegetation in hopes of safeguarding their properties … as fire hydrants ran dry. 

Fire department radios had problems with the hills … both the city’s primary and secondary radio systems became overused and ineffective.

There was excessive radio traffic on the initially assigned tactical frequency, leading to delayed communication, reduced situational awareness, and resources struggling to coordinate tactics and tasks.

‘Political Pressure’ On LA City Fire Challenges Chopper Crews

A vague mention of “political pressures”  created challenges for the helicopter dispatch team … 

There was also community pressure to use the mobile fire retardant base that was not ordered or prioritized by the incident commander. 

Crews were struggling with five different types of helicopters … commanders on the ground as a result did not where the fire was … making evacuation zone decisions more challenging. 

And there was a lack of staffing in the fire department’s Evacuation Branch … 

A Ventura fire captain was hit by a car … and the extent of his injury was difficult to ascertain due to crappy radio performances.

No Agency Has Examined LA County Fire’s  Effort In Malibu

There was a list of 42 lessons drawn up and released. 

Mayor Karen Bass says she will implement at least one of them immediately … not allowing firefighters to go home at the end of  their shifts … during fires … as what happened that awful day.

Yesterday’s release of the LA City after action report did not address Malibu … or how the county handled the loss of 770 houses on the city’s east end.

That was left to the county’s after action report … which was released last week.

That report said the Malibu fire response would be addressed by the City of LA After Action Report … since the Palisades Fire was an LA City Fire matter.

In other words … neither agency … no agency … has reviewed how 770 houses in Malibu were lost to fire.

29 Year Old Arrested In Florida For Destroying 1/10th of Malibu

Now … a recap of the arrest of a 29 year old man … now living in Florida … for allegedly setting the Palisades Fire.

EVIL THINGS 71608

“I wish we could get into somebody’s head.

“But we can’t.

“People do evil things for whatever reason … and I’m not gonna speculate or go onto anything of that.

“We have evidence that will be addressed in trial.

“But evil people do evil things.”

That was the acting U S attorney for LA…  William Essayli … yesterday 

He laid out their case against Jonathan Rinderknecht .. who sits in a federal detention center in Orlando this morning … awaiting a preliminary court hearing.

Rinderknecht only faces one charge right now .. with a possible 20 year prison sentence. 

But the case will soon go before a federal grand jury … which will be asked to return additional charges against the man.

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives LA chief is Kenny Cooper … says they did a comprehensive recreation of the fir’s orgin

He says they have 3 terabytes of data … data that proves Rinnderkenct started a fire at midnight New Years Eve …

That was the Lachman Fire … named after a nearby street … which smoldered and grew into the Palisades Fire six days later … as a massive Santa Ana blew into the area. 

TWO FIRES BATF 71608

“We have fixed surveillance points. 

“We have witnesses that were up with their phones. 

“We have a lot of different data that all concluded where this fire started and a fire behavior from that origin from that Lockman Fire was clearly established in the palisades fire..”

Cooper says there is no doubt that the Lochman fire and the palisades Fire were the same thing.

The BATF expert said the recreation fire set last March behaved exactly as the Lachman fire did.

And that evidence gathered by the federal agents will prove the link between the fire that Rinderknecht set on New years Eve … and the Palisades Fire six days later,

Again BATF agent Coope.r

FIELD TEST 71607

“We broadcasted as a public safety announcement back in spring.

“We went up and we recreated a fire … very safely with our partners with the LA fire … using butane and scientific process to create the fire behavior to see.

“And I’ll tell you to the extent of the scientific expertise that we went through, we recreated it in the exact lunar time that the fire started.

“We knew the exact size that the moon was. 

“And as was close to the star-lit environment that was when fire started … so we can recreate scientifically the fire and see how fixed surveillance points saw that fire as it developed from other evidence developed.”

A former friend told investigators that Rinderknecht had frequented the Skull Rock trail in the past.

Rinderknecht was fond of a clearing known as Hidden Buddha for the small Buddha figurines people leave there.

The federal information says Rinderknecht used his iPhone to take videos at the clearing and listen to a French rap song “Un Zder, Un The.” 

The song is about despair and bitterness, its music video shows a trash can on fire. Rinderknecht had listened to the song nine times in the four days before he allegedly set the Palisades Fire.

Federal prosecutor Essayli says the LA fire department cannot be blamed for not fully putting out the original fire … which had left glowing embers deep in the ground. 

REIGNITED DOJ 71610

“They don’t say they put out fires. They suppress the fire so they use the best of their abilities at that time to suppress.

“Like we said there was vegetation. The fire went underground and you know I’m not a fire expert, but there’s only so much you can do about that.

“So it did smolder there … which the winds picked up and then reignited.”

Huge SUV Driven By Passed Out Rock Icon Wipes Out On PCH

A huge Lincoln Navigator driven by Gene Simmons … the rock and roll star … went out of control on Pacific Coast Highway Tuesday.

It apparently crossed over the center turn lane … two opposing lanes … and then sideswiped parked cars … according to the sheriff’s office.

The exact location was not released. 

Simmons says he passed out at the wheel … blacked out … and crashed the big SUV.

His wife told NBC4 that Simmons had recently had his medication changed by his doctor … and had not been drinking enough water … leading to a medical issue.

He was hospitalized after the crash to be checked out. 

No charges or citations were announced.

Caltrans Plans Additional Daytime Lane Closures In Topanga Canyon Starting Monday

Caltyrnas has a major project about to start in there heart of Topanga village … and it will mean additional lane closures.

This will be another one lane shared by both directions situation … with flaggers … up hill from the Lumberyard … up to the lower traffic signal. 

One lane will be open .. one lane closed … between Frnwood pacific Drive and Grandview Drive.

This will be weekdays from 9 to 5 … starting Monday and lasting 2 to 4 weeks.

And it is separate … with separate waiting lines … from the major road rebuilding lane closure in the S-curves below the village … towards the ocean.