According to multiple Los Angeles Fire Department firefighters, crews mopping up the January 1, 2025, Lachman Fire in Pacific Palisades were ordered by a Battalion Chief on January 2 to roll up hoses and leave the scene even though the ground was smoldering and "red hot coals" were found in the area.
The fire continued to smolder and burn in underground root systems, according to federal investigators, until January 7, when strong winds whipped it back up. That blaze came to be known as the Palisades Fire, which decimated an entire community and killed 12 people.
LAFD knew "immediately" that the January 7 fire was a reignition of the Lachman Fire, according to the messages, yet the Incident Commander and other members of LAFD's command staff vehemently denied any link until federal investigators forced their hand in early October.
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A firefighter who was part of LAFD's mop-up crew on January 2 told Palisades fire victim and community advocate Spencer Pratt his story.
For anyone who doubted that firefighters did NOT want to leave the Lachman Fire, but were ORDERED to leave. We told you this weeks ago… pic.twitter.com/InlJmzZDCy
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) October 30, 2025
That firefighter wrote, in part (emphasis added):
"There was several hot spots and it was definitely still smoldering. Tons of smoldering tree stumps still remained that needed to be dug out and water applied. I believe a hand crew needed to come in and mop up the whole area with water.
"I just wanted to let you know so you have the truth. I had a chief walk by me that day and I showed him a hotspot. He said it was good enough and we continued to pick all the hose up. I was using water that was draining out of the hose to put red hot coals out. I couldn't believe we walked away from that burn scar the way it was."
The Los Angeles Times obtained text message threads between three LAFD firefighters and a third party, corroborating what Pratt was told, and also spoke to firefighters who were not part of the text message threads.
In one text message, a firefighter who was at the scene on Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave the burn scar unprotected because of the visible signs of smoldering terrain. “And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote in recent weeks.
A different firefighter said this month that crew members were upset when told to pack up and leave, but that they could not ignore orders, according to the texts.
While these rank-and-file firefighters understood the danger posed by the smoldering blaze, it seems that some in the command staff did not, based on comments made by former LAFD Interim Chief Ronnie Villanueva, who came out of retirement to lead the department after LA Mayor Karen Bass fired then-Chief Kristin Crowley in the days after the fire:
Villanueva told The Times that neither he nor the LAFD’s arson squad knew what a holdover fire was until federal investigators explained it to them.
“As far as we were concerned, the fire was extinguished,” he said. “Unbeknownst to us, it was still in the rooting system.”
Both Villanueva and LAFD Assistant Chief Joe Everett, whose father's home burned in the Palisades Fire, claim that crews patrolled and "cold trailed" the Lachman Fire site for more than 36 hours, but the official After Action Report says, "Resources remained on patrol status for an additional 12 hours until the last company cleared at 1641 hours on January 1, 2025." Villanueva also told the LA Times that on January 3, after a report of smoke in the area, “We went back over there again. We dug it all out again. … We did everything that we could do — cold-trail again. We did all of that.” When asked to provide dispatch records to corroborate Villanueva's assertions about January 3, LAFD did not respond.
The latest revelations paint Everett's January 16 comments in an entirely different light. At a community meeting that night, Everett said he was informed about the Lachman Fire immediately when it happened, he said, and he and his Deputy Chief quickly got on the phone with the Incident Commander. When asked about the possibility that the Lachman Fire could have rekindled and started the Palisades Fire, Everett was dismissive, saying:
"I can tell you those people on that fire ground were highly qualified and well-trusted. They also did what they called a cold trailing operation well into the next day. We kept a patrol well over 36 hours. We kept the hose line on the hill, we call it we kept it plumbed just to go back and continue to patrol. That fire was dead out."
LAFD Assistant Chief Everett on January 16, 2025 claimed the Jan 1 Lachman fire was "dead out" by Jan 3 and "If it is determined that was the cause" of the Palisades Fire, "it would be a phenomenon."
— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) October 8, 2025
"On the fire on New Year's Eve. I was not there. I was out of town. However,… pic.twitter.com/BGfbRcTqx8
Everett's comment at the beginning of the meeting is spot-on, though:
“It’s extremely, extremely hard for me to look you in the eye knowing that, quite honestly, I feel like I failed you in some respect,” - Los Angeles Assistant Fire Chief Joe Everett pic.twitter.com/sX2Mt68XMx
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 17, 2025
He said, “It’s extremely, extremely hard for me to look you in the eye knowing that, quite honestly, I feel like I failed you in some respect."
Undoubtedly, thousands of Palisadians will agree with that assessment.
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