The long-awaited report investigates how Los Angeles County officials failed to evacuate West Altadna in time as the Eaton fire threatened the community and did not blame the alarm for the outbreak, but rather attributed the issue to chaos, unprecedented conditions and poor communication nights.
The 132-page report released Thursday appeared to downplay the early days of the fire threatening West Altadena – despite 911 calls reporting flames and smoke in the area – and only mentioned 19 people killed in the fire at a time, all but one, were found on the west side of the town.
Instead, it focused on the “perfect storm” of the fire, poor preparations and the “fire front” of satellite elimination did not enter the western altadena until 5 a.m. after the evacuation alarm was issued, although several fires were confirmed in the area earlier that night.
An independent investigation by consulting firm McChrystal Group was released eight months after the Los Angeles area fires, after the Times revealed that the county did not issue evacuation alerts in West Altadena until smoke and flames from the Eaton Fire threatened the community.
Although the area east of Lake Avenue was granted an evacuation order after 7 p.m. on January 7, most of West Altadena did not receive any evacuation alerts until 3:30 a.m., until hours after people began reporting fires to the 911 area in 911.
Officials told the Times that the responsibility for issuing the evacuation order was distributed among three agencies: the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the County Emergency Management Office.
But Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna later downplayed his department’s role, saying firefighters usually lead because they are “experts” in this case. The emergency management office responsible for issuing the alarm said there were no technical issues.
The report confirmed without specifying a blame or explaining what went wrong, the county did not send any evacuation alerts, including West Altadena. The report said at the time: “All areas [L.A. county fire officials] It is believed that evacuation warnings or orders have been received due to direct or risky effects of the Eaton fire. ”
But this is obviously not the case.
West Altadena’s first evacuation order was at 3:25 a.m., according to the 911 log of the Los Angeles County Fire Department obtained by the Times.
The initial fire did not match the location of the damaged structure, the report said, and it seemed to question the effectiveness of these early calls and the presence of the flame. The report claims that the building was later confirmed to have a fire in West Altadena before 1 a.m. on January 8, more than two hours before the evacuation order was issued.
The reports provide two examples that the fire could burn westward more than an hour before West Altadena evacuation alarm.
A fire department staff at the site of Altadena said they recommended that command personnel be unified a little before midnight on January 8, and that due to strong winds, evacuation orders should be evacuated from the foothills of Altadena to La Cañada. The Unification Commander said they did not remember the incident and the Fire Front did not move westward at the time.
About two hours later, at 2:18 a.m., a county fire department staffer broadcast the radio station, and they saw Farnsworth Park moving westward along the foothills.
Although some officials present during the decision-making process told investigators that they had already recorded notes about evacuation decisions in the field, the notes were “either incomplete, not time-covered or not maintained.”
“LacOFD, LASD, or OEM does not use official forms or documents to jointly record which areas should receive evacuation orders or warnings, the time to make a decision or the time to communicate the area to the OEM staff of the EOC.”
The report also mentions – without naming a specific person or agency, the county is “worrying about over-cruising” during the fire, fearing increased chaos, panic or unnecessary traffic problems. This is clearly warned by national guidelines on alerts and warning systems, and experts repeatedly warned.
The report said that based on National Guard satellite data, the Fire Front did not cross the west of Altadena until about 5 a.m. until two hours after the evacuation order. The report acknowledged that 911 calls came from hours before the order, but classified the incidents as “on-site fire.”
The report repeatedly mentions how conditions create a “perfect storm” for firefighters, while stressing that it seems that there is a real point in capturing the fire at NASA’s jet propulsion lab, which could release toxic smoke if ignited.
Although the fire initially burned eastward, firefighters quickly reported that it was “everywhere at once” at 70-90 mph at 70-90 mph.
“Evacuation decisions and news cannot keep up with the fire,” the report said.
The report also claimed that as winds increased, the fire entered West Altadna, describing it as a “densely populated” area where older homes built “more susceptible to ignition” materials.
The report found how the county carried out evacuation issues. Sometimes, when an officer evacuates an area, they automatically evacuate the area next to it. But this practice was not codified and was not carried out in the western Altadena.
The report found that there was no platform for the three agencies responsible to coordinate communication, exacerbating decisions with fire response and exacerbating problems. The report said sheriff’s department staff may not be aware of in real time which areas are under evacuation warnings or orders because they are not always on par with other agencies at Unified Command.
The report was conducted by McChrystal Group, a consulting firm with experience in evaluating government responses to natural disasters. The report includes dozens of interviews with firefighters and county officials as well as public listening sessions.
Some of the people who attended the meeting said they were cathartic. Others said they were skeptical of the county-funded report.
“I think the butt covering the county will be hotter,” said Shawna Dawson Beer. His home was burned down in the Eaton fire. “I don’t want any real responsibility.”
During the May 7 hearing meeting, residents repeatedly told consultants that their evacuation order was dangerously delayed. “No one of us actually got the alarm,” said one woman.
County officials largely declined to answer questions about problems with delayed evacuation alerts, citing on the ongoing investigation. McChrystal Group also did not answer the questions, but has released only two updates in the past few months, although neither contains any substantive information.
In 2019, nearly a year after the Woolsey Fire, a similar report prepared by city colleagues detailed how multiple concurrent fires have made first responders give priority to sending people. The fire destroyed about 1,600 buildings and killed three people.
According to the 2025 report, a response in January this year also found similar problems. Both reports question the wisdom of further development in areas prone to fire-affected areas, given that officials allegedly fail to defend the large number of Californians living in high-risk areas.
The Times investigation also found that most county fire trucks were not moved to the West Altadena until long after being hit by the fire. Many county fire trucks have been deployed to the Palisade Fire and East Altadna. Marone said the lack of fire trucks in Altadena may boil down to fire officials who decide where the truck should move.
