Los Angeles on Fire

States with a smaller population than Los Angeles County ! @GavinNewsom @fema @R5_Fire_News pic.twitter.com/Ebxv6KygpA

— Russel L. Honore' (@ltgrusselhonore) January 12, 2025

Maanvi Singh and Dani Anguiano at The Guardian:

The horrors that unfolded around US’s second largest city this week were shocking – but they were also, to some extent, expected. The blazes are part of the wildfire crisis that’s been unfolding in the American west for the last decade, from the 2017 fire siege in California’s Bay area to the 2018 blaze that destroyed Paradise and killed 85 people.

The fires that ravaged Los Angeles unfolded on a stunning landscape that is prone to burn, yet dotted with thousands of homes built over the years. Hurricane-force winds barreled through an area that hadn’t seen substantial rain in months, leading to massive conflagrations, fanned by hurricane-force gusts. It created a firestorm that spread at a rate that far exceeded firefighters’ ability to respond.

Firefighting forces across the state are deeply understaffed and have been struggling for years to battle the barrage of extreme wildfires. The 9,000 firefighters in Los Angeles county – including crews with the county’s fire department and 29 other fire agencies – were overwhelmed by the size and ferocity of the wildfires across the region, calling for aid from neighboring counties and states.

Infrastructure failed, too. “This is like a third world country,” said Rick Caruso, the billionaire real estate developer who lost the mayoral race to Bass, calling into a local radio station. Caruso was referring to reports that water hydrants in the Pacific Palisades, where his daughter lost her home, ran dry. A Los Angeles Times report that a massive reservoir in the Pacific Palisades was closed for repairs and empty at the time of the fire has raised further questions.

The city did, in fact, have enough water, but the system was not built for fighting multiple infernos. The LA department of water and power (LADWP) said that fire crews drew so much water, so fast in the initial hours of the fight, that the tanks that maintain water pressure to help supplies travel uphill to hydrants were strained.

“We pushed the system to the extreme,” the LADWP CEO Janisse Quiñones said in a news conference. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.” Crews instead had to rely on water trucks.

Federal Mud

In earlier posts (here and here), we discussed California's Station Fire as a case study in federalism. The story continues. Because the fire destroyed hillside vegetation, recent heavy rains triggered mudslides in neighboring communities. Local officials want federal action, as the Los Angeles Daily News reports:

Some local officials on Sunday demanded that the federal government pay for mud removal, blaming the mudslide damage on the U.S. Forest Service for scaling back firefighting efforts too early after the Station Fire broke out in late August.

La Cañada Flintridge Mayor Laura Olhasso blasted the U.S. Forest Service for allowing mud to flow from federal land into residential neighborhoods - a complaint similar to one made earlier by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

"I call on the federal government to take the responsibility to help our residents pay for cleaning up the mud," Olhasso said at a news conference in her mud-ravaged community. "The federal government must take responsibility for their mud that is coming out of their hills."

In an interview, Olhasso said she personally spoke to U.S. Rep. David Dreier, R-San Dimas, Sunday morning asking the area's congressman for help in getting the country's Federal Emergency Management Agency to quickly provide assistance to residents.

Fires and Federalism, an Update

Several months ago, we discussed the role of federalism in fighting the Station Fire, the largest wildfire in Los Angeles County history.  Since then, news reports have suggested severe problems in coordination.   The Los Angeles Times has uncovered documents relating to the deaths of two county firefighters:

A U.S. Forest Service e-mail written shortly after the deaths addresses the hazards of the fire and refers to the loss of "two people who stayed too long." The e-mail was obtained by The Times along with other records that show that the camp crews were not formally assigned to the Station operation and thus might have been excluded from the commanders' broader strategy of defending critical structures in the forest while ensuring the safety of firefighters. The battle against the fire was managed jointly by the county and the U.S. Forest Service.
The unusual disconnect between the camp and those leading the attack on the biggest fire in county history is evident in dispatch logs that reveal scant contact between the Mt. Gleason crews and the command center. Experts say that violates long-established firefighting protocols that require all agencies to work together on major blazes in the forest, maintaining good communications with each other and sharing information about fire behavior, weather conditions and escape routes.

On December 21, the Times reported:

Newly released records contradict a finding by the U.S. Forest Service that steep terrain prevented the agency from using aircraft to attack -- and potentially contain -- the Station fire just before it began raging out of control. Experts on  Forest Service tactics also dispute the agency's conclusion that helicopters and tanker planes would have been ineffective because the canyon in the Angeles National Forest was too treacherous for ground crews to take advantage of aerial water dumps. Two officers who helped direct the fight on the ground and from the sky made separate requests for choppers and tankers during a critical period on the deadly fire's second day, according to records and interviews.

Fires and Federalism

The Station Fire, which has burned more than 160,000 acres of California, is a case study in federalism.

The federal government is playing a major role. The fire has taken place largely in the Angeles National Forest, which is under the jurisdiction of the United States Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The fight against the blaze has also involved state government (the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire), county government (the Los Angeles County Fire Department) and a variety of local governments including the Los Angeles Fire Department -- separate and distinct from the county fire department -- as well as fire departments in Glendale and other communities.

The fire has involved a remarkable degree of cooperation among these levels of government. But there has been conflict, too. Local officials fault the Forest Service for failing to clear brush before the fire. "We want to see other agencies ... act responsibly in taking care of their brush," Los Angeles Fire Marshal Jim Hill told the Los Angeles Daily News. "We don't think that this sets a very good example for a federal agency."

Time reporter Kevin O'Leary points out that the Forest Service is paying most of the cost. he quotes Forest Service spokesperson Caleb Weaver: "One of the ways the federal government is supporting the state and local government in the Station Fire effort is that the U.S. Forest Service is providing over 1,600 of the 4,800 personnel fighting the fire."

One of the authors of this textbook witnessed the fire up close. Note the Los Angeles Fire Department Skycrane helicopters: