LA City Fire Chief Admits His Department Made Critical Errors Before, During and After The Palisades Fire, Killing 4 in Malibu

Astounding admissions yesterday from the City of Los Angeles fire chief …  He says .. we screwed up.  One year ago … the Los Angeles city fire department failed to annticipate … it failed to react … and it failed to followup.

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“We have to own that … and I do.”

The city of Los Angeles fire chief: Jamie Moore.

“As a result we’ve already changed our mop-up procedures, and we now formally incorporate the use of drone technology to enhance post fire detection, situational awareness, and detection of residual heat.

“These changes are now in place to ensure that this will never happen again.”

City fire chief Jamie Moore finally dropped his defensiveness … yesterday … at a board of Fire Commissioners meeting in L-A.

The Palisades Fire burned into Malibu one year ago today.

Four people in Malibu were killed. 

Randall “Crawdaddy” Miod, a 55 year old surfer.  

Betty O’Meara, the 94 year old retired owner of the Malibu Cinema. 

Two people whom we don’t know much about: Diana Webb, 82.

And Hak Wong, 69.

Billions of dollars of property in Malibu burned. 

Businesses choked. 

The city is out tens of millions of dollars … we can no longer afford badly needed parks. 

Yesterday…. The LA city fire chief admitted that the small New years Eve fore … called the Lachman Fire .. was not properly extinguished by LA City Fire. 

The LA City Fire Department chief Jamie Moore yesterday admitted … they badly abused the public trust.

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“I want you to know that earning and maintaining your trust is my highest priority.

“I am determined that we look at any and every issue to make sure that the right lessons are learned.”

That must be a lesson newly learned by the city of L A.  Moore was speaking before the City of LA Board of Fire Commissioners.

When the LA Times broke the stories about the city of LA screwups … Chief Moore blamed the newspaper for a “media circus.”

He had been assuring the public that the City of LA knew what it was doing … when it rolled up its hose and left the original fire .. on January Second … four days before the big fire emerged from the smoldering ashes.

Yesterday … a different tune. 

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“At the time fire companies were directed to pick up hose, the department genuinely believed the fire was fully extinguished.

“That was based on the information, conditions and procedures in place at that moment.

“The outcome has made it incredibly clear that our mop-up and verification process needed to be stronger.”

And this time the fire department did not blame the LA Times.   And he also did not throw his firefighters under the bus either.

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“These challenges were not the result of failures by firefighters that were on the line. They reflect leadership decisions, legacy systems and long-standing structural constraints.”

But this was the same L-A fire chief whose office put out an after-action summary … a post mortem … a review of the department’s actions.

The day it came out last summer … we called it bull.

It was so obvious. 

The report did not examine why the small fire … the Lachman Fire was not put out.

The report did not examine why LA fire management did not upstage for the impending hurricane force winds that they knew were forecast.

Yesterday … the chief admitted what the LA Times found out through public records requests. 

That the after-action report was a watered down whitewash. 

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 “It is now clear that multiple drafts were edited, to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership in that final report.”

And the city of L-A fire chief asked for the public’s trust.

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“I can assure you that nothing of this sort will ever again happen while I am fire chief.”

All well and good intentions. 

But what changes have been implemented already???

The city fire chief had a list of those.

LA City Fire has updated their mop-up, and verification procedures, after deciding the fire is out.

They are going to use of drone technology and thermal imaging … to make sure.

They are going to pay more attention to the weather forecasts.

And they are going to use experts to better anticipate fire weather behavior and deploy resources earlier and more strategically.

12 Months After City Of LA Caused The Fire, No Analysis Of How It Was Stopped In Malibu

Remmeber … all that was in the city of Los Angeles. 

We would love to tell you how the LA County Fire Department handled the job in Malibu … as the city’s fire burned into the county.

But that’s not really possible.

Under federal law… the fire was handled as a joint unified command. 

The city of Los Angeles is in charge of the after action report … including for Malibu.

There has been no after action breakout issued for Malibu.

In fact… the official after action report barely even mentions Malibu … even tough four people were killed out here.

City council members have said the fire was stopped from devouring the entire city … all the way west to Point Mugu … out of dumb luck.

Three weeks earlier ….the Malibu Canyon area in the heart of Malibu burned in an earlier brush fire. 

That was the Franklin Fire … and it caused a giant fire break that the Palisades Fire intersected. 

It was pure luck.

740 or so houses were destroyed in the City of Malibu by the Palisades Fire.

But several hundred houses were also destroyed up near Saddle Peak … in the mountains north of the city limit.

Yesterday… county supervisor Lindsey Horvath put out news release.

She says the cleanup … up there … was the fastest in U S history. 

The country has set up a Disaster Relief Financing District … which will take new property tax revenue from rebuilt houses and reinvest the tax money in critical public infrastructure in the fire zone. 

Supervisor Horvath also points to a five-year, $200 million plan to strengthen Malibu’s water system … Waterworks District 29 … which is owned by LA County.

Adding backup generators for pumps, expanding water storage, and improving interconnections for better fire flow. 

Truth is … Malibu water customers have been paying for those improvements for years.

Malibu has been paying into a fund for those exact improvements for years … and the county is way behind on building the water projects that they promised.

Horvath also says the county has streamlined permitting— with permits issued three times faster than before the fires.

28 days on average. 

LA City Council Member Still Worried About Evacuation Plan For PCH

The issue of traffic choking Pacific Coast Highway as both Malibu and pacific Palisades evacuated at the same time remains.

A year ago … Malibu and the City of L-A were trying to evacuate … and brain in fire equipment … at the same time. 

It was total chaos on PCH at Sunset.

There has been precious little cooperation between the cities of Los Angeles … Santa Monica and Malibu … along with the five other government agencies that control PCH … in formulating evocation plans. 

LA city council member Tracy Park says we lucked out.

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“That was a huge miss on January 7th …  and even in the place where we had control officers the protocols that were being used were not effective given the volume of vehicles.”

The city of L A and the people of Topanga Canyon and Malibu lucked out. 

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“It is a miracle that no one died in that evacuation on January 7.

“People in Paradise were not so lucky.”

Red Hot Anger Still Smolders In Palisades

Many people in the Palisades are seething … red hot angry … at what happened that day one year ago.

And political vultures are circling. 

Longtime opponents of Mayor Karen Bass are using the incredible incompetence of her fire department to score political points. 

But to be fair … this is not without significant jstificatioon.

Karen Bass was interviewed by ABC 7 yesterday.

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“I think there are people that are profiting and that is what I find a very despicable: intentionally putting out misinformation, intentionally profiting from social media with book deals, etc. and I think that’s unfortunate.

“To me. I hope that it’s about healing and moving forward and getting this community back every single Palisidian that wants to come back

“That should be the focus.

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Community commemorations are being staged by local officials and citizens today and tonight..

Last night … someone fired off their rainbow lasers across Zuma Beach … apparently someone thinks bright lasers honor the dead.

The lights prompted calls from as far away as Santa Monica. 

The city of Malibu will hold its solemn ceremony today at 4 at City Hall,.

Horvath is going to host a one year community rising picnic Saturday at 11:30 at Pepperdine University ,… she says it will honor the strength, resilience, and solidarity shown throughout the past year. 

The unhappy people are holding their They Let Us Burn rally at the Palisades business district … what’s left of it … this morning at 10:30.

Federal Garment Opening Door For Gigantic Musk Rockets To Launch From Up The Coast

The Trump administration is opening the door for SpaceX – Elon Musk – to start launching his gigantic Starship rockets … just up the coast from Malibu.

Musk has been launching dozens of SpaceX rockets … small ones … from Vandenberg Space Force Base …. 100 miles upcoast from Malibu.

Other than a few sonic booms … no local impact here.

But the gigantic SpaceX Starship rockets are a wholly different matter.   They have 33 rocket engines at their base.  

They are too big for Canaveral … too big for the current facility at Vanenberg …. They  can only be launched from a SpaceX base at the southern tip of Texas.

Late last week … Vandenberg Space Force Base quietly announced plans to open up its California launch site for private companies to develop and fly super-heavy lift spacecraft. 

That’s aerospace industry shorthand for huge rockets … bigger than the NASA Saturn  5B rockets that launched Apollo astronauts into space from Cape Canaveral.  

There is only one company launching super heavy rockets right now … Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Musk publicly envisions these gigantic rockets launching frequently … as often as three times a day … probably from several bases in Texas … Florida and just up the coast from Malibu.

The goal would be to stockpile enough fuel and oxygen in space … at a depot above earth …  to power a single Starship out toward Mars. 

Elom Musk has fantasies above moving to Mars.   He really does. 

Last week … the U.S. Space Force began seeking responses from launch service providers interested in leasing space at the new launch pads at Vandenberg.

The space industry is reportedly abuzz with the idea that this gives billionaire Elon Musk’s commercial rocket company the option of bringing its Starship operations to the West Coast.

From an operational standpoint … this makes sense … as it would be better to launch heavy loads over the Pacific Ocean … instead of over Mexico. 

Scientists contacted by NPR last fall said the super heavy lift rockets in Texas are causing millions of gallons of polluted water to flow into the Gulf of Mexico . With every launch … 

When it goes up … it vaporizes parts of the launch site.

The shockwave blast created by engine ignition and take-off is enormous … last time … the blast dug into the concrete launch pad, flinging debris across Texas.

Oops.  

One launch shockwave  in Texas was so severe that it destroyed survellience cameras watching eggs in bird nests more than a quarter mile away from the rocket pad. 

The Vandenberg rocket pads are in the middle of California wildlife areas. 

NPR reports that SpaceX wants to use its superheavy rockets … to greatly expand its Starlink network. 

Starlink needs big satellites to bring internet data into space … to then feed its constellation of thousands of small relay stations, 

And NASA has paid SpaceX about $4 billion to use the rocket as part of its mission to return U-S astronauts to the moon.

Will those launches be happening just up the coast from Malibu?

Stay tuned.