During last year’s fires in the Los Angeles area, police dispatchers had to temporarily route 911 calls through a single captain’s personal cellphone.So many calls came in that some firefighter units went “dark” — meaning dispatchers were no longer tracking them.
As communications broke down, some firefighters began to take their cues from captains they trusted instead of the agency’s top leaders.These are just a few examples of emergency communications failures described in a new, comprehensive review of the deadly fires.
The findings paint a picture of a response marred by poor preparation, communication issues and disorganized leadership that struggled to coordinate between jurisdictions.The 724-page report, released Friday, comes from UL Research Institutes (ULRI), an organization that focuses on safety science.
Gov.Gavin Newsom tasked the researchers with evaluating the conditions, decisions, actions and systems that influenced the conflagration.
This is the second of two ULRI reports evaluating the fires.Overall, the researchers found that Los Angeles authorities were not prepared or trained for such extreme conditions and that they struggled to work side by side as the situation deteriorated.On the night the Eaton Fire took off, for example, “the speed and scale of the event overwhelmed the 911 system,” Derek Alconis, a senior research program manager and lead investigator at ULRI, said in a news briefing.
“Calls came in faster than dispatch could manage or assign them.” As the situation worsened, agencies struggled to communicate, and those in charge lost track of where crews were working and what they were doing.“It was not an effective unified command,” Alconis said, adding that the confusion hampered evacuation efforts.
A firefighter monitors the spread of the Auto Fire in Oxnard, Los Angeles, on Jan.13, 2025.
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