In the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires, which killed 31 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures, survivors have been frustrated by a series of official investigations that have glossed over or downplayed failures on the part of Los Angeles city and county agencies.
Now, a long-awaited independent investigation commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom provides the most frank and in-depth review of the Jan. 7, 2025 catastrophes, and points out multiple shortcomings in governmental planning and response.
The findings released Friday by the UL Research Institutes’ Fire Safety Research Institute confirm key reporting by The Times, particularly about how a historically black neighborhood where the majority of fire victims died received delayed evacuation alerts, and how the Los Angeles Fire Department neglected signs that a Jan. 1 fire in Pacific Palisades — which later erupted into the Palisades fire — was still smoldering after the department initially contained it.
The 724-page report describes a deluge of chaos and poor communication that made evacuations, rescues and firefighting more challenging amid conditions that were already exceptionally dangerous and volatile.
In the Eaton fire, reports of an ember-storm seen by paramedics in west Altadena never reached incident commanders, the assessment found. Meanwhile, the L.A. County Fire Department — the agency at the helm of the incident — failed to formally organize evacuation operations within the command. Once reports of fire in west Altadena finally reached commanders, it took over an hour to order evacuations.
In Pacific Palisades, the LAFD failed to act on multiple warnings that the Lachman fire was still smoldering. The investigation found no evidence the fire department monitored the burn area as critical fire weather approached. Topanga State Park, where part of the Jan. 1 fire burned, had failed to consult fire agencies when creating its wildfire plan.
The report also found that the LAFD leaders who initially oversaw the Palisades fire response lacked experience with large, complicated fires, causing other agencies to operate independently of the department instead of joining forces. Incident commanders also lost the confidence of on-the-ground personnel who were, at times, forced to act without the approval of commanders.
Conditions in Southern California that January had put local and state fire officials — among the most “well-trained firefighters in the world” — in an incredibly difficult situation, said Derek Alkonis, FSRI senior research program manager at the Fire Safety Research Institute.
“The whole system was, in a sense, just boiling — primed and ready to release all of that stored up energy come January 7th,” he said at a Thursday press briefing.
West Altadena’s horrors didn’t reach emergency commanders
In the Eaton fire, the report detailed a lack of communication between deputies and paramedics on the ground and officials in charge of the fire response even as flames were pushing into west Altadena — an area that had received significantly delayed evacuation alerts.
More than three hours before the first evacuation alert went out to west Altadena there was increasing sheriff’s activity there. “LASD officers went door-to-door, while patrol cars used PA systems to alert residents to evacuate,” the report found. But no widespread evacuation alert was issued. Around this time, an L.A. County paramedic squad responded to Glenrose and West Loma Alta Drive, reporting “embercast ‘like snow’ and structures on fire,” the report found.
The incident is strikingly similar to a May Times report that detailed how information from the scene failed to result in timely evacuations.
For reasons the report doesn’t explain, the paramedics squad operated independently and was not assigned to the fire incident. “As a result, no information on what they witnessed was reported to anyone working on the incident,” the report found.
Had 911 calls been routed through incident command’s operations section chief, “this crucial information on the fire’s progression west of Lake Avenue could have been known and acted upon earlier to trigger additional evacuation notifications,” the report found.
As The Times first reported in January 2025, west Altadena evacuation alerts came “as the fire approached and, in some cases, after it had already begun impacting the area,” the report found. The evacuation order for most of western Altadena did not go out until 3:25 a.m. on Jan. 8, more than 4 hours after the first 911 call west of Lake Avenue and several hours after Sheriff’s deputies witnessed fire in the area.
All but one of the 19 people killed in the Eaton fire died in this area.
“The circumstances of several fatalities suggest that some individuals may not have been aware of the fire’s proximity or their evacuation status,” the report found. “Early warnings are especially important for vulnerable populations because they provide additional time to react and receive support from family members, neighbors, or caregivers.”
LAFD ignored multiple warnings about the smoldering Lachman fire
After the LAFD contained the Lachman fire within Topanga State Park on the morning of Jan. 1, State Parks representatives asked that a trail — cut in an unburned area to reach the fire — be covered with vegetation to prevent the public from using it. They also asked the LAFD to eventually remove a hose still placed in the region, noting a hose had been left in the area for a whole year after a previous fire, according to the report.
Fire crews continued “mop-up” operations to ensure all hot spots were put out. An LAFD officer reported walking the fire perimeter four times, as late as 4 p.m., before departing.
Crews returned the following day to remove the hose. A captain said he expressed it was not a good idea to remove it, as it could be needed for further mop-up. The captain later saw a wisp of smoke. A firefighter paramedic said he expressed concern that control lines were not well-defined, and also identified a hot spot. Other firefighters on the ground said they did not encounter hot spots.
A battalion chief ordered crews to remove the hose anyway, The Times reported in October 2025.
The next day, Jan. 3, the LAFD received a report of a wisp of smoke, but when fire officials arrived, they did not see any.
“When a wind event, Red Flag Warning, low humidity period, or other elevated fire weather is forecasted after a wildland fire, departments should reassess recently controlled fire areas before the weather arrives,” the report said.
However, the investigation did not find evidence that the LAFD returned to the site to patrol for hot spots as dangerous fire weather approached.
Further, the LAFD did not have comprehensive mop-up procedures for wildland fires, the investigation found, which can “can create variability in how containment is confirmed, how much of a fire area is mopped up, when hose lines are removed, when patrol status is appropriate, and what conditions require follow-up inspection.”
The report recommended that the LAFD prioritize a culture that empowers firefighters to inform their supervisors about hot spots, unsafe conditions and other concerns. It said those concerns should be evaluated and resolved before crews are released from the assignment.
As for State Parks, the investigation found the draft Topanga State Park Wildfire Management Plan did not include input from fire agencies. Wildfire training for State Parks personnel was not consistent, the report found. Interviews with State parks personnel indicated they consistently yielded environmental concerns to fire suppression priorities.
City dysfunction hurt Palisades fire response
The FSRI report details a city fire department that lacked experience with major fires, failed to communicate with more-experienced agencies and struggled to track its own firefighters.
As critical fire weather approached, the LAFD pre-deployed only a few extra fire crews, a misstep that The Times detailed in February 2025.
This “compromised the city’s initial and extended response, and further compromised the region” as other fire departments picked up the slack, the report found.
When the Palisades fire erupted, the department initially created an incident command at Fire Station 23, located in the path of the fire along a major evacuation route. The initial LAFD team responsible for commanding operations was unfamiliar with the basic process for requesting help from other fire agencies. They hesitated as they questioned who would ultimately have to pay for the extra firefighters and equipment they ordered.
When they did request support, the request did not meet the need for a fast-moving wind-driven fire, the investigation found.
The Los Angeles Police Department, which focused on evacuations, did not integrate under the same command as the LAFD. The two operated in parallel. It wasn’t until late Jan. 7 that the two city agencies realized they were working with different evacuation maps. On paper, the L.A. County Fire Department joined a unified command with the LAFD, but when it recognized the “inadequacy of the current command organization,” it began operating independently, the report found.
Incident command was ultimately forced to relocate three times, as command posts were inundated with fleeing residents and eventually the fire itself.
On-the-ground responders became confused by a deluge of 911 calls. Others felt an urgency to act faster than the commanders. Consequently, up to 26 units deployed without the knowledge of incident command, the investigation found.
Incident command suffered from “credibility issues … a lack of trust and an overall institutional disconnect between command staff and line personnel,” the investigation found. It noted that middle-rank fire captains were often more trusted than the formal command staff.
The following day, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection took over incident command. Some responders noted that “coordination and consistency greatly improved” thereafter.
Chaos ruled the Eaton fire’s incident command
Even if on-the-ground reports of a burning west Altadena had reached the Rose Bowl base, the incident command located there was disorganized and chaotic, the report found.
The lack of effective coordination between L.A. County fire and sheriff’s officials “caused a major gap in communication and a lag in response,” the consequences of which would become clear as incident command fell behind on evacuating west Altadena.
From the moment the command center had been established at the Rose Bowl, “evacuation operations were not formalized within the incident organization,” according to the report, even as some on-the-ground believed it had been.
County incident commanders were spurred to send an alert to western Altadena after hearing a radio report of fire moving west at 2:19 a.m. — even though deputies and paramedics on the ground reported dangerous conditions hours earlier.
Around this time, the report found that “virtually all other fire resources were still east of Lake Avenue and spread out over several miles,” with far from enough resources to respond to the escalating emergency. (Reporting from The Times also that found that fire trucks struggled to shift as the fire moved west.)
Fire officials then consulted a map and instructed the Office of Emergency Management to send an evacuation order for most areas west of Lake Avenue — the dividing line between west and east Altadena. The elapsed time from report of fire movement to issuance of the order was just over an hour, the report found.
The last evacuation zone in west Altadena to receive an evacuation alert came ultimately at 5:50 a.m. By then, fire had ravaged the community; the report suggests that incident commanders were unaware of the devastation.
Los Angeles County Fire Department Incident Command “was unaware that the fire had progressed through west Altadena until the daylight hours on January 8, 2025,” the report read. “By that time, most of the structures in west Altadena had already been impacted by the fire.”
Fire officials had also failed to take advantage of satellite imagery after strong winds grounded their typical eyes in the sky, aircraft.
Except for one Angeles National Forest official, “firefighters and law enforcement personnel did not reference these products when asked about intelligence tools they used,” the report found, confirming prior reporting from The Times that the federally-run FireGuard program could have provided helpful imaging.
Eaton fire officials have continued to say they were not aware the fire was moving west, but FireGuard maps provided in the report show the blaze beginning to shift westward as early as 9 p.m.
The L.A. County Fire Department has since said it has integrated FireGuard into its processes.
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