Palisades Fire: LAFD chief addresses pre-deployment decisions prior to blaze

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley Wednesday defended pre-deployment decisions made by the agency prior to last week's devastating windstorm that fanned the deadly Palisades Fire, saying resources were pre-positioned at a level beyond what would normally be deployed in a Santa Ana wind event, while also maintaining adequate staffing across the city.

Crowley faced questions about how fire crews were deployed on Jan. 7, before the Palisades Fire erupted.

The National Weather Service had warned of life-threatening winds and extremely dangerous fire conditions. Crowley said personnel and equipment were pre-deployed at 8 a.m. that morning.

"We pre-deployed 19 fire engines, three battalion command teams, five brush patrols, two water tenders and additional air operations personnel and we augmented our dispatch center as well," Crowley said. "With that we even pulled on additional resources internally within the Los Angeles Fire Department to add five engines and one battalion chief. That is above and beyond what we would do on a red-flag day."

Meanwhile, the LAFD said no additional personnel were assigned to fire stations 23 or 69, which are in the Pacific Palisades. LAFD says that's due to a lack of parking space.

We're still waiting to learn how long it took for the first engine to arrive at the Palisades Fire, but the LAFD says at least 10 engines, some of which would have been dispatched to the Palisades, were already heading to another fire on the Sunset Strip. That brush fire - just above Sunset Boulevard - broke out around 10:09 a.m., roughly 20 minutes before the Palisades Fire was reported and nearly 20 miles away.

The LAFD says when the initial report of the Palisades Fire came in, those engines were immediately re-directed to the Palisades.

Additional engines from L.A. County Fire and 15 Ventura County Fire Department engines also responded to the Palisades. In the coming hours, fire departments from all over California and other states helped in the firefight.

Crowley says her department needs more firefighters.

City News Service contributed to this report.