{"id":258756,"date":"2025-09-27T12:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T12:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/258756\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T12:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T12:52:11","slug":"why-the-altadena-evacuation-investigation-did-not-assign-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/258756\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Altadena evacuation investigation did not assign blame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The long-awaited Los Angeles County report<\/a> examining the botched evacuation alerts in Altadena during the deadly Eaton fire cited a long list of shortcomings, from preparation to tactics. <\/p>\n

But the after-action report into the fire that killed 19 people \u2014 all but one of them in west Altadena \u2014 stopped short of singling out individual leaders for those issues, and it failed to provide a detailed explanation for why evacuation orders in west Altadena came hours after smoke and flames started to threaten the area.<\/p>\n

While the report, by Virginia-based consulting firm McChrystal Group, confirmed The Times\u2019 reporting that first revealed the late evacuation orders,<\/a> it did not detail exactly who or what was responsible for the breakdown, which county officials have previously called \u201can epic fail<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

That lack of blame appears to have arisen by design, despite fire victims\u2019 repeated calls for accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis report does not investigate wrongdoing or assign blame,\u201d the authors state at the beginning of the 132-page report, commissioned by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors at a cost of $2 million and released Thursday. \u201cIts purpose is to assess the County\u2019s alert and evacuation systems \u2026 and provide actionable recommendations to strengthen future response efforts.\u201d <\/p>\n

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, called for the review after The Times reported in January that almost all the Eaton fire deaths occurred on the unincorporated town\u2019s west side. In her motion, Barger cited \u201cquestions that have arisen\u201d about the evacuation process.<\/p>\n

After reviewing the after-action report, she said she was pleased with its findings, calling it an \u201cin depth\u201d report that \u201cdelivered a holistic picture of what worked and what didn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n

She acknowledged that many residents were frustrated that the report didn\u2019t squarely apply blame for the late evacuation orders. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no one smoking gun, and I know that\u2019s problematic for people to understand,\u201d Barger said at a news conference Thursday. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that there were failures, but it was not one specific individual or one specific department that can have an, \u2018Off with your head.\u2019 At the end of the day … it truly was the perfect storm.\u201d <\/p>\n

But some experts and many Altadena residents worry that the report\u2019s lack of specificity helps officials dodge accountability and makes it more difficult to ensure that such a catastrophic failure doesn\u2019t happen again. <\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody needs to take responsibility, and nobody does that because they want to protect their authorities,\u201d said Art Botterell, who retired in 2018 from the California Governor\u2019s Office of Emergency Services as senior emergency services coordinator. \u201cResponsibility just gets you hurt. So there\u2019s a tendency to avoid that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shawna Dawson Beer, who lost her home in northwest Altadena, said the report repeatedly shielded county officials, particularly fire and sheriff\u2019s officials, from any real accountability. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to know WHO was responsible,\u201d Beers wrote in a social media post<\/a> on her Beautiful Altadena page. \u201cName the officials. Identify the decision-makers. … This isn\u2019t about blame, it\u2019s about responsibility.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mark Douglas, another west Altadena resident who lost his home in the fire, said he had low expectations for the report, despite how long it took. But he was still disappointed that it included almost no answers about why his community received evacuation alerts hours after homes were on fire. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all wondering and promised an explanation as to why they didn\u2019t go out,\u201d Douglas said. <\/p>\n

He said he wasn\u2019t looking to blame rank-and-file firefighters and sheriff\u2019s deputies, on a night when they were also battling Palisades fire, protecting eastern Altadena and rescuing countless people in both fires. But he was shocked to see no one named or quoted in the report \u2014 not even agency heads.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s authors interviewed 147 people from the community and the agencies most closely involved in the evacuation alerts \u2014 the L.A. County Fire Department, the L.A. County Sheriff\u2019s Department and the county Office of Emergency Management. But the report did not name any officials, not even Fire Chief Anthony Marrone or Sheriff Robert Luna.<\/p>\n

Douglas said he would like to hear directly from these officials in a setting where community members can directly address them and get answers. <\/p>\n

The report found that a little before midnight, a staff member from the L.A. County Fire Department suggested to the fire\u2019s \u201cunified command\u201d staff that, due to high winds, evacuation orders should go out for most of the San Gabriel foothills, including all of Altadena. <\/p>\n

But unified command staffers said they didn\u2019t recall this. Two hours later, another fire staffer radioed that they saw fire north of Farnsworth Park, moving west along the foothills into west Altadena.<\/p>\n

Not until 3:25 a.m. did most west Altadena residents receive an evacuation order. <\/p>\n

The report did not say why the midnight recommendation wasn\u2019t received or acted on, or why it took more than an hour for the second radio call to be sent as an evacuation order. It did not say who was responsible for those decisions or if others should have stepped in.<\/p>\n

The report did cite communication breakdowns, unclear designation of responsibilities, insufficient resources and chaotic conditions as factors in the lapses, while providing recommendations for how to address those big picture shortcomings in the future. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was this breakdown in the system. … There is no one individual that you can point to and say, \u2018You failed at your job,\u2019\u201d Barger said. \u201cIt was a combination of many things taking place, including the way this fire was acting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron Galperin, a former Los Angeles city controller who produced reports on the city\u2019s emergency alerts in 2018 and 2022, disputed the idea that the report did not assign blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it points out is that there is a lot of blame to go around for everyone,\u201d he said, noting that L.A. County fire, sheriff and emergency management officials all played a role, along with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and other local, state and federal authorities that pitched in. \u201cSo many different parties are involved here, that, in fact, there is plenty of blame to go around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barger agreed, saying that looking at the big picture issues will be most helpful.<\/p>\n

\u201cLasting improvements won\u2019t come from pointing to a single error \u2014 they\u2019ll come from addressing the broader processes and communication gaps that the report identified,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate that the McChrystal Group\u2019s report provided recommendations [that] are specific and actionable, especially regarding what needs to be done to improve coordination and collaboration across County departments,\u201d she added. \u201cThat\u2019s where my focus is now \u2014 making sure we implement those changes, so our Los Angeles County residents are safer in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas Cova, a geography professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City who specializes in environmental hazards and emergency management, said it\u2019s likely that officials will never answer the big questions lingering over the Eaton fire: Why were evacuation orders to west Altadena so delayed, and who was responsible?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to say that we don\u2019t want to play the blame game,\u201d Cova said. \u201cIf this kind of thing happened with a surgeon, or if this kind of thing happened with an air traffic controller, would they just say we need more training for the person or would they say that we need to get somebody new because the public deserves better?\u201d<\/p>\n

Times staff writers Terry Castleman and Richard Winton contributed to this report.<\/p>\n