Author of LAFD Palisades fire report declined to endorse final version, called it ‘highly

Replying to @AGHamilton29 and @EricMertz_KC
“The lawyers said we’ll get sued if we tell the truth”

Replying to @AGHamilton29
The steady accumulation of moments like this is driving a massive erosion of trust in our institutions.

Replying to @AGHamilton29
Basically, everything is rigged at this point to control the narrative and keep the American people in the dark.

Not a person will pay for this bullshite.

Shocking. How long can this corruption at all levels of government be purged? Its unending.

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Who’s the author?

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LAFD Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, who wrote the after-action report on the Palisades fire, declined to endorse the final version.

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I guess I’m confused as to their hierarchy

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Yeah not sure when.

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Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook emailed then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva and other LAFD officials with the subject line “Palisades AARR Non-Endorsement,” about an hour after the highly anticipated report was made public Oct. 8.

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One edit to the after-action report involved language stating that the decision to not fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.

The final report did not include that language, saying instead that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”

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This is what I wrote in the original OT thread about the fires on January 13, 2025:

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Looking further into the previous fire in the area the Palisades Fire started.

That was the first new fire in LA County of the new year. It was first reported at around 2:45 AM on New Year's Day. Its start location is very, very close to that of the Palisades Fire. It burned under 15-20mph winds, had some ember cast, and received a quick response with plenty of resources. It burned eight acres in total, and did briefly threaten homes along a road immediately adjacent to what I believe were the first homes impacted by the Palisades fire six days later. It was dubbed the Lachman Fire, and no homes were damaged by it. By 6:00 AM forward progress on the fire had been stopped, and it was no longer actively burning.

I haven't seen an official statement on the cause of the Lachman Fire, but being that it occured on New Year's Eve/Day, fireworks are the most likely culprit, particularly given the location near several neighborhoods. Given this info, I believe that a holdover rekindling of the Lachman Fire is the most likely cause of the Palisades Fire start six days later.

All of that said, if people want a real, legitimate piece of policy to go after in regards to the Palisades Fire the fact that the LAFD doesn't appear to have a policy of keeping close mandatory watch on fires that have recently been extinguished is a good area to focus on. I don't know for certain, but it seems that no one followed up on that fire, and it wasn't department policy to do so.

Failing to keep tabs on previously burned areas, particularly in the face of a well-forecast Santa Ana Wind event and a looming extremely critical fire weather day is a big, big problem. It is an even bigger issue when you understand how close the original Lachman Fire was to heavily populated areas.

The original fire, thankfully, wasn't a huge threat to those neighborhoods. The winds were manageable, humidity was decent, and the response was more than sufficient. The factors that changed everything with the following Palisades Fire were the extremely high winds and rock bottom humidity. However, it very likely wouldn't have mattered if the original fire had been checked and any remaining embers or hotspots were doused in the days leading up to the heightened fire threat.

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Here's a link to the original post that contains a Google Maps screenshot of where I thought the two fires started:
LINK

Since then, we have had an arrest for arson centering around the first fire on early New Year's Day (the Lachman Fire) and fireworks, and we have now seen a concentrated effort to minimize the role that the failure to monitor the Lachman Fire played.

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failure to monitor the original Lachlan Fire on New Year's Eve/Day.

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I read somewhere that the firefighters working that original fire were ordered to leave without ensuring the capacity for re-ignition had been performed.

As I recall, the particular vegetation involved is known for re-igniting if not thoroughly attending to its root system - especially when there is high wind possibility.

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I read somewhere that the firefighters working that original fire were ordered to leave without ensuring the capacity for re-ignition had been performed.

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It was possible they were "ordered", but the more likely scenario was one of the original units just rotated off shift and they failed to send anyone to continue monitoring it. I'm still not certain as to the LAFD policy for monitoring fires, and if that particular fire in that particular area would have technically been its responsibility to begin with.

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As I recall, the particular vegetation involved is known for re-igniting if not thoroughly attending to its root system - especially when there is high wind possibility.

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Any fire in the Chaparral has the potential to burn for weeks, even months, underground. Hell, any wildfire in most any region can do that under the right conditions. That's why monitoring is so important and why offical containment of large fires moves so slowly.

ETA: The Lahaina/Maui fire was also a holdover fire, and that was a wildfire in an area with no natural wildfire cycle.

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Here's a link to the original post that contains a Google Maps screenshot of where I thought the two fires started:

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I think it’s funny we say we “think we know where it started”. They know where. Just like we knew MH-370 went down but let other countries report it and we knew when that crazy billionaire blew himself up in his sub before it was released by the company itself.

Our technology is wild.

Aerial shots alone from the day would show them exactly where it started.