After-Action Report Calls LAPD Officers' Efforts 'Courageous and Heroic' During Palisades Fire

A lack of coordination between the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department contributed to evacuation delays and chaos during the Palisades fire, according to a new after-action report from the LAPD.

The Los Angeles Police Department had difficulties coordinating with other agencies during the blaze –  namely the Los Angeles Fire Department – and a lack of stable communication channels and technology, according to the report, released Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Spanning 92 pages, the report identifies areas for the department to improve “before the next major incident impacts the City of Los Angeles.”

But it also called the police department’s efforts “courageous and heroic.”

The LAPD has had little experience working with agencies outside of the City of Los Angeles, “especially in dynamic disaster response scenarios,” the report said.

The Palisades fire burned over 23,448 acres in Los Angeles, killed 12 and damaged or destroyed over 7,000 structures.

The Los Angeles Fire Department released its own after-action report in October after Jonathan Rinderknecht, suspected of starting an earlier fire that led to the Palisades fire, was arrested. The LAFD report identified staffing shortages and intense winds as chief challenges during its response.

The police department’s response included a 29-day-long tactical alert, over 700 officers a day assigned to the Palisades at the fire’s peak and complex coordination with other agencies, including the Los Angeles Fire Department, Cal Fire and the California National Guard. Ninety crimes and 19 arrests were reported by the department during the duration of the blaze, with charges ranging from impersonating a police officer to the most reported crime in the evacuation zone, burglary.

The need for a unified command

As LAPD officers began responding to the fire on the morning of Jan. 7, long drives to the far west Pacific Palisades slowed additional officers’ arrival times, lack of personal protective equipment caused officers to stop door-to-door evacuation alerts, wind and bad reception caused a tactical alert to be delayed and a shift to a dedicated radio frequency caused “significant confusion.”

As more police officers were dispatched to the Palisades, the Los Angeles Fire Department was focused on fighting the spreading flames, preventing them from providing direction for evacuations, prompting the police department to instead use 911 calls and reports from officers to direct resources.

Rather than operating as a unified command, “the two departments did not collectively establish a unified command structure or identify shared objectives, missions, or strategies,” according to the report.

“According to several LAPD personnel who were at the [ Command Post], coordination between LAFD and LAPD was minimal at Fire Station 23,” according to the report.

The report recommends the two agencies train together and emphasize “true Unified Command organizational structure.”

Clearing up confusion

The chain of command within the LAPD was also identified as a sector for improvement, with some confusion during the response attributed to the chain of command and authority, which should be more clearly defined and communicated in the future, the report suggests.

Documentation was also inconsistent throughout the response, with paper records being kept by some personnel, some records not being made and “sparse information” about resources and evacuation areas available. The report recommends the department address this through training and policy clarification.

A crush of residents fleeing the Palisades via Sunset Boulevard not only caused chaos for evacuees, but the report reflects difficulties the gridlock caused for first responders.

A presidential visit on Jan. 7 also tied up a “large contingent of officers, including all of the Department’s on-duty motorcycle officers,” in west Los Angeles. Otherwise, they may have been able to weave through traffic and ease the gridlock in the Palisades area, the report said.

Motorcycle officers were unable to be released from the presidential detail, but as President Joe Biden’s schedule changed, a group of officers in patrol cars were sent to the Palisades response. These officers were “a vital injection of resources in a relatively short amount of time,” as they were already located on the west side of the city.

Officers had to instruct people to leave their cars and evacuate towards Pacific Coast Highway on foot, which “made it more difficult for fire engines to navigate the area and later forced firefighters to use a bulldozer to clear vehicles from the roadway,” but was ultimately necessary as those fleeing motorists were in danger and cars later caught fire.

The Palisades fire crept closer to Fire Station 23, necessitating a move of the command post to Will Rogers State Beach, which was also a source of confusion, the report said.

The report notes that cell service in the area was affected by the fire, making many unreachable and prompting friends and family to call 911, though many people authorities received calls about had actually safely evacuated the area.

Communication challenges

Communications in the Palisades area are routinely difficult because of the area’s distance to main towers and the Santa Monica Mountains, but during the fire, the Green Mountain radio repeater site was also shut down because of fire and wind and the radio and cell sites designed to serve the Palisades burned, making “poor communication … exponentially worse.”

“At times, the [ Command Post] was forced to communicate with officers in the field through the West LA Watch Commander who had access to personal cell phone numbers,” the report reads in part.

The police department could not share radio frequencies with authorities from other agencies, which also caused delays.

The report recommends improving radio reception, testing their system to ensure it can handle the needs of first responders in emergency situations and changing vendors if it cannot, and finding a “fallback radio frequency that can be utilized during mutual aid situations,” in partnership with other authorities.

Given the communication issues, lack of personal protective equipment and subpar resources available to police during the fire, the report recommends adding natural disaster kits to patrol cars and augmenting equipment and support during long-term deployments and using other city agencies that may be better suited to a situation than the LAPD, such as the sanitation and transportation departments.

Noticing the fire spreading towards unevacuated neighborhoods where residents remained on Jan. 7, an LAPD supervisor requested officers evacuate those areas.

“The West LA supervisor’s decision to call for evacuations in the Alphabet Streets, Via Bluffs, and Huntington Palisades likely saved countless lives,” the report notes. “By 7:15 p.m., homes in these neighborhoods began to catch fire. Ultimately, the Via Bluffs and the Alphabet Streets were almost entirely destroyed.”

As the blaze continued to rage, Cal Fire took control of fire management and set up a Unified Command Post at Zuma Beach, to the north of the Palisades in Malibu, which had “extremely poor” communication with Will Rogers State Beach, where the LAPD staging area was located, causing further issues communicating with officers in the field. The Zuma Beach post was not connected to the internet for days, forcing officers to traverse the 20 miles between Zuma Beach and Will Rogers to hand deliver documents, according to the report.

As the fire continued to burn for a third day, Governor Gavin Newsom activated the state’s National Guard, adding another agency to the response. Police were not sure of the California National Guard’s role at first.

“Though an agreement was eventually reached and rules for deployment were solidified, the delay could have been avoided if the CNGs deployment limitations were known ahead of time,” the report said.

The Genasys zone mapping system used to order evacuations as the Palisades fire spread towards Brentwood and the west San Fernando Valley was unfamiliar to the LAPD at the time, another source of difficulty identified in the report as police worked to assist with evacuations. The police department is now working with the fire department to use the Genasys system, noting that it was efficient when officers became familiar with it.

The LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division and Major Crimes Division are continuing to investigate the five deaths reported within the city of Los Angeles, in partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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