Fire after fire, L.A. County keeps promising to fix failures but doesn't deliver

"Agencies across Los Angeles County were "overwhelmed." The Emergency Operations Center was "largely ineffective" in maintaining situational awareness. Some notification tools were not "used or used often enough" in the early hours of the fire and there was "no clear, single, comprehensive voice" on evacuations. These were the troubling findings of a sweeping report that examined the performance of L.A. County fire, sheriff, and emergency management agencies in the wake of the 2018 Woolsey fire, which burned 1,100 structures across L.A. and killed three people."

"To a remarkable degree, they foretold many of the failures that would beset L.A. County during the even more catastrophic January firestorms that destroyed 17,000 structures and killed 31 people. The after-action report on the Palisades and Eaton fires, released last week, found staff lacked training and no clear chain of command. The county struggled to monitor rapidly unfolding events without streamlined coordination tools and operated with "unclear" and "outdated" policies and protocols when deciding when to send evacuation warnings and orders."

"When the order finally went out, homes in the area were already ablaze. All but one of the 19 deaths in the Eaton fire occurred in west Altadena. The seeming lack of progress - particularly the inability to develop clear policies and protocol - points to what some experts describe as a larger failure to learn from major fire disasters."

Los Angeles County emergency response capacity proved insufficient during multiple major wildfires, with overwhelmed agencies and an Emergency Operations Center that lacked situational awareness. Notification tools were underused and no single, authoritative evacuation voice existed, producing delayed or unclear evacuation actions. Staffing deficits included inadequate training and an unclear chain of command. Coordination tools and policies remained outdated or unclear, hampering real-time monitoring and decision-making. Delays in issuing evacuation orders contributed to fatalities, particularly in west Altadena, underscoring persistent failures to adopt consistent protocols and improve operational readiness for rapidly unfolding fire incidents.

Read at Los Angeles Times