Report finds no failures in Altadena fire evacuations. Critics decry lack of accountability
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More than a year after the deadly Eaton fire swept through Altadena, killing 19 people, a new, outside review of firefighters’ decision-making concluded “there was no failure” by L.A.County fire officials in ordering evacuations.
The report, released Monday and commissioned by the Los Angeles County Fire Department, found that incident command could not have “reasonably” requested evacuation orders for the area earlier because they weren’t aware the fire was moving into west Altadena.Over the last 16 months, The Times has reported on mounting evidence that fire was threatening west Altadena well before evacuation alerts were issued, with several spot fires and heavy smoke reported, but it took hours to evacuate the historically Black neighborhood.Those revelations — based on 911 calls, dispatch records and harrowing resident accounts of perilous escapes — prompted the California attorney general in February to open a civil rights investigation into potential disparities in the fire response, looking particularly at delays in evacuation alerts and resource allocation.
The new 51-page report, however, doesn’t acknowledge any shortcomings related to the evacuation alerts.Rather, it points out that many conditions that had existed there for years — streets aligning with the canyons, dense neighborhoods with heavy tree canopies that can help spread fire — combined with the strong winds and lack of intelligence from aircraft overhead “made stopping the fire spread impossible.” L.A.
County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who has previously said there was a “breakdown” in how evacuation alerts went out, said the new report found that “Unified Command did not engage in misconduct or intentionally delay evacuation decisions affecting areas west of Lake Avenue.”“At the same time,” Barger said in a statement, “this investigation should not be interpreted ...