California wildfire report points to lack of resources and outdated policies

A lack of resources and outdated policies for sending emergency alerts led to delayed evacuation warnings during deadly Los Angeles-area wildfires in January, according to an outside review.

The Independent After-Action Report produced by the consulting firm McChrystal Group was commissioned by Los Angeles County supervisors just weeks after the Eaton and Palisades fires killed more than 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes in and around Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

The report released Thursday says a series of weaknesses, including “outdated policies, inconsistent practices and communications vulnerabilities,” hampered the county’s response.

Interviews with survivors and an analysis of available data found that evacuation orders for some neighbourhoods of Altadena, where the Eaton Fire swept through, came long after houses burned down.

Critical staffing shortages and slow alerts

The report cites critical staffing shortages, including a high number of sheriff’s deputy vacancies and an under-resourced Office of Emergency Management.

In addition, first responders and incident commanders were unable to consistently share information due to unreliable cellular connectivity, inconsistent field reporting methods, and the use of various unconnected communication platforms.

“While frontline responders acted decisively and, in many cases, heroically, in the face of extraordinary conditions, the events underscored the need for clearer policies, stronger training, integrated tools, and improved public communication,” the report says.

It is not intended to investigate or assess blame, county officials said in a news release.

The review also found that the process to communicate an evacuation decision to the public was slow, convoluted and involved multiple leadership roles across county-level departments.

In the case of the Palisades Fire, the Los Angeles County Fire Department and Sheriff’s Department identified areas that required evacuation. They then communicated those areas to a member of the County’s Office of Emergency Management at the Incident Command centre. This person then made a phone call or sent a text message to another OEM staffer located in the Emergency Operations Centre, who then updated the system put in place by the third-party vendor and triggered an alert to the public.

During the January inferno, according to the report, this process took between 20 and 30 minutes. That's an improvement over the old system that took between 30 and 60 minutes for the public to receive notice of an evacuation, the report said.

Still, many of the county’s methods to alert the public require opting in.

Some of the evacuation alerts required residents to click a separate link to get complete information, hindering messaging. The communication system used for alerts did not provide complete information about the fire’s progression. Power outages and cell tower issues further hindered evacuation notices and the fire was moving too fast to keep up, the report found.

Before the fire, the county sent out a handful of warnings about the incoming Santa Ana wind event and amplified National Weather Service messaging on social media and in news releases, but there was no official, stand-alone preparedness messaging provided by the county.

What went right

The authors praised the heroism of first responders, including sheriff’s deputies and county firefighters, who evacuated senior care facilities, led public transit bus drivers through impacted neighbourhoods and rescued people from burning homes.

“This heroic response was driven by urgency and their commitment to save lives, but it also added additional complexity to their responsibilities as they worked to maintain broader operational oversight in the field,” the authors wrote.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to review the 133-page report when it meets next Tuesday.

The causes of the two fires are still under investigation.