With the Los Angeles Fire Department facing a special warning of life-threatening winds, top commanders decided not to urgently deploy the roughly 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water-carrying engines before the blaze devastated much of Pacific Palisades. interviews and internal LAFD records show.

Last Tuesday, fire officials chose not to order firefighters to stay on second shift due to increased winds, which would have doubled existing staffing and left only five fire trucks out of more than 40 available to help fight wildfires. That's according to records obtained by The Times and interviews with Los Angeles Fire Department officials and former chiefs with knowledge of city operations.

The department only began calling in more firefighters and deploying extra engines after the Palisades Fire got out of control.

No additional engines were installed in the Palisades that caught fire around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 7, officials said. The department pre-positioned nine engines already on duty in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, where fires were anticipated. Officials said they moved more engines "first thing in the morning" to cover northeast Los Angeles

The Times' findings come as Los Angeles Fire Department officials continue to claim firefighting efforts are hampered by budget cuts in the department and low water levels in some hydrants. They acknowledged the decision not to assign more firefighters or preposition more available engines after The New York Times provided them with internal documents describing the department's actions.

Fire Chief Kristin Crowley defended her agency's decision, saying commanders must remain strategic with limited resources while continuing to handle routine 911 calls. She said the number of calls to the Los Angeles Fire Department's 106 fire stations doubled to 3,000 on Tuesday as high winds downed trees and power lines.

“I support the plan they have because we have to manage everyone in the city,” Crowley told The Times.

But several former chiefs with extensive experience in LAFD tactics said most of the 40-plus available engines could have been pre-deployed to the fire zone before the Palisades fire began, while others remained at the station to help respond to 911 Increase in phone calls. Current LAFD officials say the engines were eventually used to fight the Palisades Fire and other fires, or to supplement other engines deployed on the front lines.

"The plans you use now to respond to a fire should be used before a fire occurs," said Rick Crawford, a former Los Angeles Fire Department battalion chief. “It’s a well-known staffing strategy — the deployment model.”

Over the past few days, Crowley and other officials have given The Times varying accounts of how many engines will be available to supplement regular deployments. An internal planning document obtained by The Times from a source shows the department said "no" to deploying nine additional engines, known as "backup" engines, in fire-prone areas. These are different from the nine engines pre-deployed in Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

Crowley initially told The Times that most of the spare engines that had been prepared were inoperable or unusable. However, a spokesman for Crowley later said only four of the nine were not immediately available. A third official later produced a document saying seven of them were in service, most after the fire.

Crawford and other sources told The Times that other of the 40-plus engines may be used to replace spare engines.

Deputy Chief Richard Fields, who was responsible for staffing and equipment decisions before Tuesday's fire, said in an interview that his deployment plan was "appropriate for immediate response."

"It's easy for the quarterback to sit on the couch on Monday morning and tell us what we should do now that it's happened," he said. "Everything we do is based on years of experience and trying to be accountable to the rest of the city at any given time of day."

Some fire officials also said the winds were so strong that no amount of extra boots on the ground or engines at the ready could stop the flames.

Jason Hing, the department's chief deputy for emergency operations, acknowledged that the pre-deployed resources were insufficient, but said more resources may not make a difference.

He also said staffing was similar to previous red flag incidents.

"That fire was the most erratic behavior I've ever seen — 60 to 90 mph winds blowing from multiple directions like nothing I've ever seen before," Xing said. "There's no way anyone could catch fire."

But others insist the more defenses the department deploys, regardless of wind speed and strength, the better the prospects of containing the blaze if it is smaller. They cited an operational publication from the Los Angeles Fire Department, which states: “Our first-alarm brush response is based on the concept of ‘strike fast and hard.’ … If it’s a high-hazard day, (fire) The company will be prepositioned."

“Every fire is the size of a match head,” said Crawford, now the emergency and crisis management coordinator at the U.S. Capitol. During his 33 years with LAFD, he has been involved in fighting a series of major wildfires, including the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California.

In response to last week's high wind warning, Crawford said he would order about 1,000 outgoing firefighters to stay on duty Tuesday, a measure known as a "limited recall" as the second shift was about to begin.

The department consists of three firefighters who work in 24-hour shifts or platoons. The limited recall allows commanders to meet emergency staffing needs, including those for available engines, without having to rely on firefighters voluntarily returning to duty.

Limited recalls have been conducted during other large fires and can be implemented before or after a fire. Crawford and other officials said concerns about the costs of recalls, including overtime, sometimes make commanders hesitant to order recalls.

Regardless of cost, Crawford said he would place at least 25 of the more than 40 available engines at stations closest to the hillsides, including Palisades. Known internally as 200-series engines, they are, like the others, placed around cities, often paired with hook-and-ladder trucks that don't haul water. In non-emergency situations, they are manned by an engineer. When needed to respond to wildfires, they carry four firefighters.

"If you deploy these engines, you're going to have a better chance of getting better results," said Crawford, whose career with the Los Angeles Fire Department includes serving as a captain in the department's operations center. "You give yourself the best chance to minimize the spread of the fire. ... If you do that, you have the ability to say, 'I gave it my all from the beginning.'"

"That didn't happen here," he said, adding that the decision not to use more Series 200 engines and order the shift to remain on duty was part of a "domino effect of mistakes" by commanders.

Battalion Chief Patrick Leonard said the outgoing firefighters were not ordered to continue working because "we don't have enough equipment for another 1,000 members." Equipment will include engines. Leonard did not explain why shifts were not recalled to adequately staff the available 200-series engines, as the department had done during previous emergencies.

Crowley said on-duty firefighters, including fire inspectors, were quickly dispatched to service five additional Series 200 engines, but that was after the Palisades Fire began to spread.

Crowley added that some firefighters who volunteered to work as the blaze spread were sent home because there was no place to house them. Officials did not specify how many people had returned home.

Officials estimate the Palisades Fire has burned nearly 24,000 acres and destroyed or damaged more than 5,300 homes and other structures. At least eight people died in the fire, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office and the Sheriff's Department.

The Eaton Fire, which ignited on the heels of the Palisade Fire in the Altadena area, has blackened more than 14,000 acres, destroyed or damaged 7,000 homes and other structures and killed 17 people, officials said.

The day before hazardous weather occurs, Los Angeles Fire Department officials typically receive a briefing from the National Weather Service in the afternoon and use that information to decide where to position firefighters and fire trucks the next morning.

The weather service has been issuing warnings about severe fire weather for several days. "Caution!!!" The New Weather Bureau in Los Angeles posted on X on the morning of January 6 that a "life-threatening, destructive" storm was coming.

It hasn't rained much in months, and wind gusts are expected to reach 80 mph. The so-called burn index, a rating that indicates wildfire threat, is off the charts. Anything above 162 is considered "extreme," and Tuesday's burn index was 268.

"There is a high level of confidence that life-threatening and destructive storms will develop this afternoon into Wednesday morning," Los Angeles Fire Department officials wrote in an internal memo detailing staffing staffing on Jan. 7. Department response.

Having spare engines at the ready should be available for weather emergencies and sometimes to replace damaged equipment at the station.

Crowley said that in a "perfect world," she would staff the backup engines, but budget cuts have eliminated half of the Los Angeles Fire Department's machinist positions, leaving many in disrepair. Two of them have been retired and all need to be replaced, officials said.

Regardless, Fields said he doesn't think engines are needed when planning for storms because they wouldn't necessarily be a "game changer."

“I acknowledge that we may come under scrutiny after this happens because we don’t have enough funding,” Fields said. "But I would challenge those who scrutinize this matter to make a different decision before it happens."

He, like Crowley, said prepositioning more engines cannot come at the expense of the department's ability to handle emergencies outside the fire zone.

However, Crawford said prepositioning 25 Series 200 engines for the threatened wildfire — five times the number allocated the morning before the Palisades fire — would leave about 15 engines in the station building, to help handle non-fire related 911 calls. fire.

"That's enough," he said.