{"id":619680,"date":"2026-02-27T10:22:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/619680\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T10:22:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:22:19","slug":"la-firefighter-says-lachman-fire-was-still-smoldering-when-crews-were-ordered-to-leave-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/619680\/","title":{"rendered":"LA firefighter says Lachman Fire was still smoldering when crews were ordered to leave"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A Los Angeles firefighter says the Lachman Fire was still smoldering when crews were ordered to leave, days before embers reignited into the deadly <a href=\"https:\/\/abc7.com\/tag\/palisades-fire\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Palisades Fire;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Palisades Fire<\/a>, according to newly released deposition testimony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Scott Pike, a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department, testified last month as part of a lawsuit filed by 3,000 Palisades Fire victims against the city and the state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pike said he saw at least five areas that were still smoking and extremely hot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I saw light smoke on the ground,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I saw branches that were smoking still. I could smell smoke, and there were &#8230; for what I would say &#8230; I would say several smokers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pike said some of the hot spots were intense enough that he hesitated to touch them, even with gloves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I could feel the heat coming off of it, and I didn&#8217;t even want to use my gloved hand because it was hot,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it and there was like red hot, like, coals, what I believe to be the base of a bush or branches that was still smoldering, and I even heard crackling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pike testified that he reported what he found to other firefighters and a captain but felt his concerns were dismissed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He also said he was never interviewed for the city&#8217;s after-action report on the Palisades Fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Los Angeles Fire Department leadership has maintained that flames were out at the site of the Lachman Fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pike said the devastation that followed weighs heavily on him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I saw something, I said something and to my best ability, I felt like we could have done more,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Mayor Karen Bass&#8217; office released a statement Thursday, saying the mayor has been &#8220;extremely public&#8221; about demanding transparency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;As Mayor Bass said months ago when this first came to light, these revelations are &#8216;tremendously alarming,'&#8221; read the statement. &#8220;That&#8217;s why she immediately ordered a full investigation of the Lachman Fire. For more than a year, Mayor Bass has been extremely public about her demand for transparency and accountability to inform ongoing Fire Department reforms, and because those affected deserve nothing less.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Los Angeles firefighter says the Lachman Fire was still smoldering when crews were ordered to leave, days&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":619681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,265287,5413,2961,149072,224,22538,5337,17254,265047],"class_list":["post-619680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-extremely-hot","tag-karen-bass","tag-la","tag-lachman-fire","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-fire-department","tag-losangeles","tag-palisades-fire","tag-scott-pike"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116142103764797943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}