New Whistleblower

Nothing could have been done to stop the catastrophic L.A. fires that killed 24, incinerated 12k homes, and cost $250B, say the media. Nonsense, says an LA firefighter. The failure by Newsom & Bass to mobilize firefighters before the fires began led to an avoidable catastrophe. pic.twitter.com/bM7dgulyDn

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) January 14, 2025

Failure To Mobilize Firefighters Before L.A. Fires Began Led To Catastrophe, Says New Whistleblower

“We don’t have enough engines, and 100 were in the shop” says L.A. firefighter with 40 years of experience. "Lack of leadership" is the problem.

California’s governor and Los… pic.twitter.com/sfnybRczGl

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) January 14, 2025

… Angeles’s Mayor did their best to combat the catastrophic fires raging through the city, they and the media say. Governor Gavin Newsom called out the National Guard on Friday and requested national and international resources. Mayor Karen Bass returned from her trip to Ghana and said she was on the phone constantly during her flight back, coordinating disaster response.

But as fires continue to rage out of control, it’s increasingly clear that the response to the fires by California’s leaders was inadequate. The LA Department of Water and Power had drained the city’s second-largest reservoir of water, which was right near the Palisades fire, and failed to notify the County or City Fire Department. The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of “extreme fire risk” on January 2, the NWS - Los Angeles held a briefing on January 3, and yet Mayor Bass flew to Ghana anyway. Newsom did not call out the National Guard until Friday and did not mobilize national and international help until the last few days.

An aide to a former California governor told me, “Knowing the mayor’s office couldn’t adequately manage the situation, Newsom should have immediately traveled to LA to backstop the mayor’s office.”

To be fair, the catastrophe was decades in the making, and the LA basin is fire-prone. Past city and state leaders had failed to prepare the city despite catastrophic fires every 10 to 20 years in the region. And declining interest among young people in becoming firefighters, increased arsons from homeless addicts, and budget cuts over the years had depleted the city’s firefighting resources.

But none of those failures justify the reactive nature of the response by state and city leaders to the fires, nor their own role in cutting firefighting budgets and their policies that attracted the homeless and allowed them to camp outside across the city. And they start half of all fires responded to by Los Angeles fire departments.

And now, a 40-year veteran of one of the 29 fire departments in Los Angeles County has come forward to describe a shocking series of failures by state and city leaders to station fire trucks around the city before the fires started on January 7.

“You have to mobilize fire departments before the fires start because we’re so spread out,” the firefighter whistleblower said, who asked for anonymity fearing retribution. “They had the long-term weather forecast already on New Year’s eve. You have areas where they should have pre-deployed rigs [fire trucks]. They should have had them there a day before the winds started so crews can scout the area, recognize safety zones, potential problem areas, and check water supply, and things of that nature. I am not sure that took place.”

The fire chiefs should have “pre-deployed engines in high fire danger areas and neighborhoods that have overgrown trees/vegetation, narrow roads, limited access, etc… which has burned in previous years, such as Malibu, Palisades, Pasadena, Brentwood, Hollywood Hills, Palos Verdes Peninsula, and some areas in Orange County. As a Firefighter, when hear very strong Santa Ana winds are coming you think of these areas because you have been there before on previous fires in your career. What I’m hearing is that this may have not been done. And they could have pre-evacuated high-density areas in these neighborhoods that have one-way streets, or have ample police in the area for possible emergency evacs and the need for traffic control.”

“The governor, mayor, and fire chiefs said they had been mobilizing starting in early January, but I am not sure where those units were staged or how may were called in,” the firefighter said. “They should have said, ‘There is a very high probability of a fire Tuesday or Wednesday due to the 60-80 mph winds coming in so be prepared. Winds will be howling. Every day there are fires in LA County, which start from vehicles, accidents, downed power lines, outdoor fires, arsonists or whatever. We know there’s going to be a fire somewhere at some point large or small.”

The person said the city should have also required more clearing of bushes and debris. “What’s crazy is those canyons. You make people trim trees and brushes. Why not clear the canyons? Some areas have 50-foot-high trees and brush in there! That’s heavy fuel. If you don’t have those fuels, you won’t have those effects. Contract companies to start clearing the brush in the canyons and fields. They don’t do that.”

Morale was very low before the fires began because of budget cuts, the whistleblower said. “This will be a $100 billion fire. We hear that LAFD only had 100 fire apparatus in the shop! Who knows how short all the other departments are. The State or County could have spent $50 million and bought lower-end fire engines for about $500,000 each, about 100, and put them around the County in strategic locations or housed them in local fire stations. Then you could have crews use those apparatus. Then you could have crews bused or flown people [firefighters] in to run the engines. But we just don’t have enough engines!”

The number of calls LA firefighters make in a year has tripled over the last 30 years, the person said, while staffing has declined by one-third.