7 On Your Side seeks answers from LAFD on wildfire pre-deployment plan
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Even seven weeks after the Palisades Fire erupted, many questions still remain unanswered.
After weeks of asking, 7 On Your Side Investigates was finally granted an interview with Los Angeles City Fire Department's Deputy Chief Richard Fields, who was tasked with helping craft the department's pre-deployment plan going into January 7.
However, the interview was canceled Tuesday.
The LAFD Administration issued the following statement after the cancellation:
"The Los Angeles City Fire Department worked tirelessly to fight the unprecedented wildfire in the Palisades. High winds prevented the use of aerial resources for periods of time, which hindered firefighting efforts; but despite the difficult conditions and rapid spread of the fire, firefighters worked heroically to save lives and battle the fire. Because of ongoing investigations and litigation, the Department will not make further comments at this time."
The day before January 7, the National Weather Service took to social media, forecasting what it called a "life-threatening and destructive windstorm," and even listed Pacific Palisades as one of the agency's "locations of greatest concern."
Yet according to a press release from LAFD, only 128 firefighters were pre-positioned for potential brush fires on the morning of January 7.
None of them, according to the press release, were positioned in Pacific Palisades.
"When you know you're having an unprecedented wind event, you cannot be business as usual," said Rick Crawford, a retired LAFD Battalion Chief who has been critical of the department's pre-deployment plans.
He said Pacific Palisades is a place to pre-deploy because response times here are high.
As 7 On Your Side Investigates previously reported, response times from Station 23 in the Palisades average longer than eight minutes for structure fires and EMS calls. That's double the national standard of four minutes.
"So you need to make sure you are pre-positioning, because you have those longer response times just kind of laid out for you on a day-to-day basis," said Crawford.
Now we'll have to keep waiting for answers on why more resources weren't brought into Pacific Palisades before the fire.
Crawford called Fields "a fantastic fire" fighter who's a great leader, but said there's a culture of having to do more with less at LAFD due to resources being stretched so thin.
One of the questions we wanted to ask Fields about is if limited overtime funds prevented more firefighters from being pre-deployed.
