LAFD evidence details missed opportunities to completely extinguish the Lachman fire
Jacob Ulibarri spent about six hours on New Year’s Day last year mowing through hot spots where the Lachman fire burned.
The rookie Los Angeles firefighter arrived just after 7 a.m., when the smoky areas had cleared and it was easy to see. By the time the next group replaced his that afternoon, it was scarce: “One every 30 minutes, roughly,” Ulibarri recalls.
By that time, Army Chief Martin Mullen, who was conducting the tapping operation, had walked three rounds around the fire. He remembered another hot spot he saw at around 10 in the morning, the workers hit him with water. Later in the afternoon, Mullen made his fourth and final loop and left the area for good.
He decided to leave the pipes on overnight, just in case.
Over the next two days, a series of communication failures and questionable decisions led workers to leave the area early, and embers from Jan’s small fire. 1 later started burning in the Palisades fire. A firefighter who was picking up pipes on Jan. 2 found cracked, red-hot coals in the dust and warned his colleagues that careful cleaning was required. And that morning, the captain warned his foreman that it was too soon to pick up the pipes. In yet another missed opportunity, crews apparently did not go over the entire burn area after a caller reported smoke in the area on Jan. 3.
Because of this holiday, some filled in for others outside of their normal assignments. Firefighters say they follow the LAFD’s strict chain of command and don’t question higher-ups, while those in charge have vague memories or delegate responsibility to others.
The news, contained in sworn testimony from multiple firefighters earlier this year as part of a lawsuit filed by Palisades fire victims, confirms an earlier report by The Times and calls into question the LAFD’s repeated allegations that management left the fire “for dead.” More than a year later, with much of the Palisades still in ruins, LAFD leaders have refused to explain how or why the collapse happened.
LAFD personnel contacted for this story could not be reached or declined to comment.
In a statement Monday, LAFD spokeswoman Stephanie Bishop identified the arson suspect who federal prosecutors have charged with arson. “The events of Lachman and the Palisades Fire would not have been the subject of discussion if this person had not been accused of starting the fire,” he said.
“It is important to allow the legal process to proceed without outside influence or speculation. Providing comments about depositions outside of court jeopardizes the testimony of witnesses, affects the integrity of the evidence review, and affects the ongoing judicial process. We stand for the investigation by the ATF,” said the Bishop, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive Arms.
At about 6 a.m. on Jan. 2, 2025
At the end of his 24-hour overtime, Mullen handed over the reins to Battalion Chief Mario Garcia, recommending that the incoming chief issue a perimeter of fire.
“I told him I left the hoses on him all night. You have to go out there and make sure there’s nothing going on there,” said Mullen, whose regular job is to manage the LAFD’s 106 fire stations and 30 or so other buildings.
Before Garcia set foot on the burn scar, he told the station captains about the morning’s plan: Get the hoses.
At Fire Station 19 in Brentwood, Capt. Alexander Gonzalez received a text from the assistant chief, ordering him to bring in a “plug cart” — a pickup truck used to carry equipment — “to help pick up the pipe.”
The program reached out to Capt. David Sander at Fire Station 23 in Palisades and Capt. Michael McIndoe at Fire Station 69.
McIndoe had reservations.
He told the assistant chief that he thought the pipes should last a long time. He had seen the forecast that day — a National Weather Service warning had warned of wildfire-friendly weather — and managing any hot spots would be easier with hoses in the area. The assistant told him to take it from the king.
So McIndoe shared his concerns with Garcia over the phone.
Garcia “said something like, ‘Okay. Let me go check it out, and I’ll get back to you,'” McIndoe said.
But the morning orders did not change.
8:30 am on Jan. 2, 2025
After the briefing at Fire Station 23, Scott Pike and his colleagues took their ambulance to the area near the burned area. They saw a pipe hanging over a closed wall covered with a frame.
The engine crew threw a 20-foot ladder to get over the wall. Soon, said Pike, they got the phone again and left.
“We were making jokes, like, ‘It’s on us,”’ recalled Pike, a firefighter who is regularly assigned to the Sunland station.
He grabbed his brush jacket, helmet and gloves and climbed up. He decided to walk until he reached the end of the pipeline – he was feeling good and thought he would exercise.
Pike followed a main line – called a trunk line – which had pipes connecting to other directions. About 100 meters away, he saw where the grass had burned. He navigated culverts and climbed a steep 300-foot hill before hitting the mountain trail.
When he got to the end of the line, about 8:45 a.m., he noticed a few smoky spots in the heavy brush, and a hand line that wasn’t cut properly.
Another ash pit was so hot that he didn’t even want to touch it with gloves. So he kicked it with his boot, revealing hot coals. He heard screaming and smelled smoke. He looked around, and there were no other firefighters.
We shouldn’t be picking up pipes, he told himself. Instead, we have to fill the pipes with water to flush properly.
He squeezed the hose, directing any remaining water into the ash pit. It smoked and cracked. He felt defeated when he took out only a few gallons, which were not enough.
He slowed down, in case the van’s schedule changed due to his vision, and was relieved when more workers began to climb the mountains.
“Hey, guys, do you see what I see?” Pike told several firefighters. He was working overtime away from his regular fire station, so he didn’t know them. “Like, maybe we should be charging these lines instead of downloading them.”
Since they were already there, he thought, one more mop-up would save them from working on the ground if the fire did catch on.
The firemen backed away and seemed eager to finish the job.
“It was like, ‘Yeah, I see what you’re saying,’ and it was like, ‘We’re going to tell one of the captains. We’re going to tell one of the captains.’ “However, at the moment, people were very much the same, just pick up the pipe,” said Pike.
Soon after, he saw the captain and expressed the same concern.
“I approached him like that, like, ‘Hey, Cap … We’ve got hot spots in general. We’ve got ash pits,'” Pike said. “That’s a warning to reassess the whole area and maybe we need to change our tactics.”
Pike pointed out that it wasn’t his job to “step in and tell him what to do. He got that level.”
The captain suggested bringing hand tools or a bag full of water up the mountain to extinguish any hot spots.
Pike went back to taking the pipe while he waited for new orders, which never came.
The LAFD declined to say whether the captain has been identified. Pike believed the captain was from Engine 69, which would have been McIndoe. But McIndoe told The Times he did not speak to Pike that day.
McIndoe said he came across another smoking ash pit within hours of being on the hill.
He fetched a backpack with water from his engine, poured a few liters of water on the ground and dug into the dirt with his hand tool until he was satisfied that it had cooled down.
At one point, he saw Garcia, the army chief, and brought up their previous conversation.
“I just went up to him, and I said, ‘Hey, I hope you don’t think I’m trying to get out of a job,'” McIndoe said. “And he said, ‘No, it’s okay.’ Something along those lines, and that’s all I really remember. “
He said he was trying to tell Garcia that he believed “the pipeline should stay for a while.”
By the time Gonzalez, who was backfilling that day at the Brentwood station, arrived at the scene, the operation was well under way, with part of the pipe already down the hill.
“When I got there, it was just like a big hand chain pulling the pipe down to the street. And I rolled it, took it off and loaded it on the plug cart,” he testified.
He didn’t see it smoking that day. He stated that he walked a distance of 200 to 300 meters to the top, where piles of pipes were dumped. “The next person puts it back down and that’s it,” he said.
Other firefighters who were on duty to pick up the pipe that day have not been removed from the case. Besides McIndoe and Pike, four other firefighters testified that they were at the fire on Jan. 2 said they did not see smoke.
Garcia pointed out that at the burn site, no one expressed concern about the pipeline being taken. And he saw no need to leave the pipes in place.
At 1:35 pm on Jan. 2, Garcia sent a text to the top two: “All pipes and equipment have been loaded.”
At about 4:30 p.m., Garcia again walked the area with his assistant to see if they had left anything behind. He saw no problems.
“We both traveled everywhere,” Garcia said. “We went in different directions, but we put everything together, and there was nothing to worry about.”
11:51 am on Jan. 3, 2025
Just before noon, someone called LAFD about a grass fire on the property.
Engineer Edward Rincon, who had been at Engine 23 draining the pipes the day before, went up to the same place. Once again, his team threw a 20-foot ladder over the retaining wall. Like yesterday, he didn’t go into the burn scar. He stayed with the engine while the captain and two firefighters went to inspect the area. He turned up his radio to hear that they needed something.
On the other side of the wall, Captain Cesar Garcia walked for what he said was more than a football field, while two firefighters went to different heights to look around for smoke or fire.
“Everything is burnt, I don’t smell anything, I don’t see smoke, I don’t see fire,” he testified.
He withdrew the other engine that was assigned to the wire.
Firefighter Michael Contreras said he didn’t see any smoke either. He said he couldn’t see the entire burn scar where he was looking. He also said that he did not recommend his captain, Cesar Garcia, to go everywhere.
“Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?” asked the plaintiffs’ lawyer.
“And, it won’t be my way of telling him that, you know,” she said.
Army chief Mario Garcia was on duty again that day. Like Rincon, he stayed with his car. Cesar Garcia said the chief released an iPad live from two cameras on the mountain, showing no smoke or fire.
The incident report shows they spent about 34 minutes on the phone.
On the morning of Jan. 7, LAFD records show, the captain on duty in Palisades called Fire Station 23 and told his colleagues: The Lachman fire has started again.
