In the critical lead-up to the Palisades wildfire disaster, records show the Los Angeles Fire Department initially held back about 1,000 active firefighters and dispatched only five fire trucks, despite warnings the fires could spiral out of control.
Documents obtained by The Los Angeles Times outline the puzzling series of administrative missteps that led to the destruction of thousands of homes and buildings, and brings renewed scrutiny to the apparent ineptitude of city and department leaders.
Via the Los Angeles Times:
Fire officials chose not to order the firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift last Tuesday as the winds were building — which would have doubled the personnel on hand — and staffed just five of more than 40 engines that are available to aid in battling wildfires, according to the records obtained by The Times, as well as interviews with LAFD officials and former chiefs with knowledge of city operations.
The records show the department only dispatched additional firefighters and fire trucks when it was too late and the Palisades fires were already “burning out of control.”
“Officials said they moved more engines ‘first thing in the morning’ to also cover northeast L.A.,” The Times reported, adding, “They only acknowledged their decisions not to assign more firefighters or pre-position more of the available engines after The Times presented them with internal documents describing the department’s actions.”
There were also no trucks on standby in the threatened Palisades neighborhood, while nine were pre-positioned in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.
Fire Chief Kristin Crowley defended her actions in spite of the logs highlighting the department’s recklessness, telling The Times, “The plan that they put together, I stand behind, because we have to manage everybody in the city.”
However, former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford told The Times the LAFD should immediately have dispatched every resource available to combat the fires.
“The plan you’re using now for the fire you should have used before the fire,” Crawford said, adding he would have issued a “limited recall” for outgoing firefighters keeping 1,000 on duty. “It’s a known staffing tactic — a deployment model.”
There was also a mix-up in the number of “available engines” and operable “ready reserve engines,” with Crawford and others telling The Times “other engines from the group of more than 40 could have been tapped in place of disabled ready reserve ones.”
“You would have had a better chance to get a better result if you deployed those engines,” Crawford said. “You give yourself the best chance to minimize how big the fire could get. … If you do that, you have the ability to say, ‘I threw everything at it at the outset’…That didn’t happen here.”
Speaking to journalist Michael Shellenberger, an LAFD whistleblower with 40 years of experience also blamed the fires on “lack of leadership,” and claimed LAFD 100 fire engines were “in the shop.”
On top of the staffing issues, firefighters battling the blazes discovered there was no water in the fire hydrants, and the Santa Ynez reservoir which is meant to store water for the Palisades area also ran dry.
Meanwhile, Chief Crowley has recently been casting blame for the destruction on LA Mayor Karen Bass, who approved $17 million in cuts from the LAFD budget.
The new findings correlate with Infowars host Alex Jones’ analysis that the fires were not the result of routine incompetence, but a globalist-controlled administrative state that industrially sabotaged the region and created the perfect conditions allowing the fires to ravage the area.
As usual, the administrative state is scrambling to shift blame and point fingers at everyone but themselves, as they attempt to frame the disaster as a mere accident rather than deliberate negligence.
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