'It's still smoldering.' A hiker's video of Palisades fire raises questions about state's responsibility

"A hiker clambers across a scorched landscape of ash, his footsteps crunching on charred earth as he peers over a ridge at a burn scar pocked with blackened stumps. Below are thickets of green chaparral and densely packed homes. Suddenly, he stops. He zooms the camera in to wisps of white smoke rising from the dirt. "It's still smoldering," he whispers - apparently to himself. No firefighters or state park rangers are visible."

"The video of smoke on a hillside above Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades was shot by a local resident above Skull Rock Trailhead at 11:30 a.m on Jan. 2 - nearly 36 hours after the Lachman fire ignited and long after the Los Angeles Fire Department deemed the fire "fully contained." The footage is one piece of a puzzle that has been the subject of so much anger, attention and investigation since the January firestorms:"

A hiker filmed smoldering embers on Jan. 2 nearly 36 hours after the Lachman fire ignited and after the Los Angeles Fire Department had declared the blaze fully contained. The footage shows white smoke rising from a burn scar above Pacific Palisades with no firefighters or state park rangers visible. Embers from the Lachman blaze rekindled into the Jan. 7 Palisades fire that killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,800 structures. Federal authorities arrested a suspect on suspicion of igniting the Lachman fire. Victims' attorneys contend the state failed to monitor and secure the Jan. 1 brush fire to prevent rekindling and are pursuing legal action.

Read at Los Angeles Times