A consultant’s report on Los Angeles County’s response to last year’s catastrophic Eaton fire found that officials were hampered by chaos and limited resources, but engaged in no misconduct or discrimination.
“While the report provides an honest account of our operations, we recognize that no investigation can truly capture the horror and tragedy residents endured,” the county’s fire chief, Anthony C. Marrone, said in a statement accompanying the Monday report, which his agency had commissioned. He said its lessons would be turned into “lasting changes that will better protect our residents and neighborhoods.”
The Eaton fire erupted on Jan. 7, 2025, fanned by the same fierce winds that just hours before had sent the Palisades fire tearing through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, roughly 35 miles west. As a result, many fire officials were already scrambling as flames began approaching the idyllic foothill community of Altadena, northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Combined, the fires killed at least 31 people and destroyed more than 16,000 buildings. They have also reshaped the political landscape of Los Angeles, prompting Spencer Pratt, a reality television star and Palisades fire victim, to run for mayor of the city, and spurring countless legal battles.
In Altadena, fire survivors have pushed for Southern California Edison, whose executives have acknowledged its equipment most likely sparked the Eaton fire, to better compensate victims, and they have lobbied state lawmakers to force insurers to pay out claims more quickly.
But community members have also sought to hold county leaders accountable for the fire’s disproportionate toll on West Altadena, which was a haven for generations of middle-class Black families barred from other parts of Los Angeles County because of discriminatory mortgage lending.
While wealthier, predominantly white residents of the community’s eastern section were told to leave soon after the Eaton fire began, residents of West Altadena did not receive evacuation orders until flames were nearly upon them, or in some cases until it was too late. Nearly all of the 19 people who died in the blaze, many of them older Black residents, lived in West Altadena.
Black residents of Altadena have said that they felt it was a continuation of neglect by officials, who have dismissed the concerns of poorer communities of color.
But the new report concluded that, because of the winds, aerial surveillance wasn’t possible, so firefighters were faced with trying to figure out where the blaze was spreading, and that it was moving in several directions at once.
The consultant’s review found no evidence that evacuation decisions were based on race, age or socioeconomic factors.
“To firefighters, law enforcement and emergency medical personnel, there were simply lives at risk,” the report said.
Shimica Gaskins, 45, said that conclusions like that were “more of the same” from the county. Ms. Gaskins, who is Black, lost her home in Altadena and she said she was still waiting on permits to begin rebuilding.
“It doesn’t close the door on serious questions raised by residents,” she said.
On New Year’s Day, she and other activists with the group Altadena for Accountability hung a banner on a Tournament of Roses Parade float honoring fire survivors. The banner called for the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, to investigate the response.
The following month, Mr. Bonta announced that his office would open a civil rights investigation, which is ongoing. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
To Zella Knight, whose family home in West Altadena burned down, none of the reports so far have addressed how the fire and its aftermath have disproportionately displaced Black families; many who had resisted waves of gentrification were forced to sell their property and start over elsewhere.
Ms. Knight, 62, and her siblings still have not decided what to do with the lot where their parents’ home once stood.
Monday’s report, she said, “doesn’t drill down to the inequities that we still have today.” She said she was still hopeful to see some of that in Mr. Bonta’s report.
County leaders have said that they will adopt recommendations about responding to disasters from the litany of reports that have been released in the months after the fires, including Monday’s.
“Public trust requires both accountability and a willingness to learn from every aspect of a disaster response,” said Kathryn Barger, the county supervisor who represents the area affected by the Eaton fire, in a statement responding to the Monday report. “Our collective responsibility now is to ensure Los Angeles County is better prepared for the future.”
Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.
Jill Cowan is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering the forces shaping life in Southern California and throughout the state.
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