When the Eaton hearth broke out within the foothills close to Altadena, the Los Angeles County Hearth Division didn’t have entry to a satellite-based fire-tracking program repeatedly utilized by different companies, depriving officers of intelligence that might have been useful in figuring out evacuations.
The Nationwide Guard’s FireGuard program, which analyzes photos from navy satellites to distribute real-time hearth development maps a number of occasions an hour, is taken into account significantly useful to fireplace officers when plane can’t fly. However officers with the L.A. County Hearth Division mentioned they weren’t conscious of the useful resource throughout the Eaton hearth and subsequently didn’t make the most of FireGuard’s knowledge or maps.
This may increasingly have left Altadena at a drawback. With all plane grounded inside an hour of the Eaton hearth’s begin, hearth officers misplaced vital situational consciousness and have been pressured to rely virtually solely on floor observations. That turned more and more tough as night time fell, smoke intensified and highly effective winds pushed flames and embers farther and extra quickly into neighborhoods.
The county has confronted months of criticism after The Instances revealed in January that officers didn’t order evacuations for west Altadena till 9 hours after the hearth began. All however one of many 19 individuals who died within the Eaton hearth have been present in west Altadena, amongst them a 54-year-old girl whose household has claimed she died due to the delayed evacuation alerts.
Not accessing FireGuard throughout the Eaton hearth seems to have made the L.A. County Hearth Division an outlier amongst giant hearth companies in California, as the vast majority of these contacted by The Instances confirmed that they’ve used it for years. The findings increase additional questions on how the county hearth company ready for and responded to the lethal blaze, significantly with how officers did not problem well timed evacuation alerts for west Altadena and appeared fully overwhelmed as embers and flames marched westward.
Some specialists say it’s potential FireGuard satellite tv for pc mapping might have higher knowledgeable incident commanders, significantly on evacuation choices, although it’s removed from clear the way it might need modified the response — if in any respect.
Mapping from FireGuard, reviewed months after the hearth, confirmed it did observe the hearth’s regular development west for a number of hours earlier than flames overran west Altadena — and effectively earlier than the evacuation alerts went out.
“Did they not know that it shifted to [west Altadena]? That then might have been info that may have been useful,” mentioned Michael Gollner, an affiliate professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley who leads its Hearth Analysis Lab. “Or possibly they knew, however they mentioned we couldn’t do something about it,” attributable to overtaxed assets.
FireGuard “might have been helpful … by way of life security and evacuating folks out of the best way,” he added. “It will depend on what they knew, and once they knew it.”
Some county officers agree.
“It’s one thing that they need to have had, however now they’ve put that into play,” mentioned L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the unincorporated city of Altadena.
Within the aftermath of the hearth, the L.A. County Hearth Division has moved to combine FireGuard into its working platforms. Hearth Chief Anthony Marrone mentioned this system, together with plans for different technological enhancements, will “help in future wildfires however won’t ever change the first supply of situational consciousness corresponding to by air and reporting again from the sphere.”
Barger wouldn’t go as far as to say the Hearth Division missed a chance by not having FireGuard in place, however centered on how unstable the circumstances have been that night time.
“Between the wind and the hearth … it was like hastily it was on prime of them out of nowhere,” Barger mentioned. “The fireplace chief has mentioned that, fairly frankly, they have been outpaced on this fireplace as a result of it was transferring so quickly.”
However some latest analyses of the hearth have confirmed that there have been earlier indicators that the hearth was shifting west, although it’s unclear how effectively they have been realized by hearth officers. At the very least one suggestion to develop evacuation orders to the west went unheeded round midnight on Jan. 7.
The primary evacuation alert for west Altadena was issued at 3:25 a.m. on Jan. 8, effectively after a number of fires had been reported within the space. Some sections of the city weren’t ordered to evacuate till simply earlier than 6 a.m. No a part of west Altadena was issued an evacuation warning. Residents have recalled harrowing escapes from smoke-filled properties and underneath raining embers.
West Altadena, residence to a extra racially various inhabitants than the city’s jap facet, stemming from historic redlining, would find yourself the toughest hit by the hearth.
L.A. County officers have repeatedly failed to supply an in depth rationalization into why the evacuation alerts for west Altadena got here so late, or who was accountable, however a Instances evaluation of the method makes clear that county officers have been a number of steps behind the hearth because it unfold west.
In an unbiased evaluation of the county’s evacuation system, accomplished by McChrystal Group in September, investigators discovered that some officers didn’t understand how far west the hearth had unfold till effectively into the morning of Jan. 8, as late as round 3 a.m. — when hearth had began to unfold into west Altadena however evacuation orders nonetheless hadn’t gone out.
The report famous there was a “sudden shift” within the path of the hearth and a rise in winds round 3 a.m., prompting “an pressing must assess and coordinate priorities.” The report additionally discovered that round this time county hearth officers believed that every one areas “immediately impacted by or in danger from the Eaton hearth had already obtained an evacuation warning order.”
That narrative doesn’t seem in sync with obtainable FireGuard mapping and a timeline of the hearth compiled final month by state-hired investigators.
As early at 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, the hearth was transferring west towards North Lake Avenue, the unofficial east-west divider for the city, based on the state report. FireGuard photos from round that point additionally confirmed the hearth clearly transferring west within the San Gabriel foothills north of Altadena, although it was additionally concurrently increasing on an jap edge near Sierra Madre.
Between 10 and 11 p.m., nevertheless, there continued to be elevated hearth within the “north part of the western entrance,” the state report discovered. And simply earlier than midnight, L.A. County firefighters reported a hearth west of Lake Avenue on East Calaveras Road, the report discovered.
By 1:30 a.m., “a number of construction fires have been reported on Lake Avenue,” round which period a firefighter tried to analyze the extent of the hearth west of Lake however was stopped by “intense hearth circumstances that worsen,” the state report discovered.
It will be two extra hours earlier than west Altadena could be ordered to evacuate.
“Unified command did their highest to establish evacuation zones to be alerted based mostly on the knowledge obtainable to them at the moment,” Heidi Oliva, a spokesperson for the L.A. County Hearth Division, mentioned in a press release. “When unified command discovered that the hearth was seen north of Lake and transferring west, it validated and acted to problem the orders that have been despatched out.”
Though Oliva acknowledged that the FireGuard maps confirmed the hearth transferring northwest the night time of Jan. 7, she mentioned that “to be clear, the FireGuard imagery or knowledge was not obtainable to us on the time of the incident.”
“Any info that may assist enhance situational consciousness could be useful to unified command,” she mentioned. “We consider that FireGuard is an extra device that may higher inform unified incident commanders of a fireplace’s motion thus offering larger situational consciousness to reinforce decision-making on all elements of a fireplace, evacuations included, particularly when plane is grounded.”
However she was adamant that this system won’t be a panacea.
“FireGuard doesn’t choose up spot fires attributable to ember solid or downed energy traces, so it is vital this device is used at the side of different instruments to extend situational consciousness,” she mentioned. Oliva didn’t clarify why the division hadn’t applied this system within the years earlier than the hearth, when it had been made broadly obtainable to native companies via completely different working platforms.
“The Division was neither conscious of, nor had entry to, FireGuard till after the January 2025 fires,” Oliva mentioned. She mentioned in August the company labored with the federal authorities to include this system as a layer inside the division’s digital incident command platform, Pill Command. Earlier than that, she mentioned, the company didn’t have the power to include FireGuard.
Shawn Tyrie, a accomplice with McChrystal Group who reviewed the FireGuard maps, mentioned they supply some useful info, however he famous the maps didn’t choose up smaller spot fires and aren’t very detailed. He didn’t discover the information “adequate to say definitively which you could make choices … based mostly on FireGuard knowledge alone.”
Nonetheless, his consulting agency advisable the county implement FireGuard to raised inform future firefighting.
The FireGuard program has been working since 2019 however has been broadly obtainable to companies throughout the nation over the previous few years. The California Governor’s Workplace of Emergency Companies mentioned FireGuard knowledge have been obtainable to any company within the state via a number of frequent working platforms, together with one which the workplace made accessible to all native authorities companies in Could 2023, based on Matt Notley, a spokesperson for the workplace.
FireGuard’s fixed mapping of “fire-affected areas” has proved a dependable and useful backup, particularly when air assets aren’t obtainable, based on a number of officers who’ve used this system. Federal officers cited the expertise as key in serving to facilitate the evacuation of about 35,000 folks throughout the 2021 Marshall hearth in Boulder, Colo., throughout which plane have been grounded for the primary eight hours of the blaze.
The Instances reached out to greater than 10 of the biggest firefighting companies in California, the vast majority of which confirmed that they’d entry to FireGuard as of January and had applied the information into their techniques and processes. A couple of officers with the California Division of Forestry and Hearth Safety who spoke about FireGuard have been stunned or confused that L.A. County hadn’t been utilizing this system.
Phillip SeLegue, employees chief of CalFire’s intelligence program, famous that whereas FireGuard nonetheless has some shortcomings — it doesn’t present a full hearth perimeter and requires web connectivity to entry — it has nonetheless turn into a recreation changer for “early detection and ongoing evaluation.”
“It’s very worthwhile to us…. It’s dramatically improved our hearth unfold prediction,” SeLegue mentioned. “What FireGuard offers us is 24/7, persistent protection.”
Along with CalFire (which incorporates its many cooperative jurisdictions corresponding to unincorporated San Diego and Riverside counties), the hearth departments for Ventura, San Bernardino, Orange, Kern and Santa Clara counties and the Angeles Nationwide Forest confirmed to The Instances that they’ve used FireGuard knowledge for years, and most mentioned it’s used for early detection, situational consciousness or each.
The fireplace departments for Santa Barbara and Alameda counties mentioned they didn’t use FireGuard; nor did the San Francisco Hearth Division.
The Los Angeles Hearth Division, chargeable for fires within the metropolis and the lead company responding to the Palisades hearth, didn’t reply to a number of questions on its FireGuard use or entry.
Operated by California and Colorado Nationwide Guard troops, FireGuard makes use of Division of Protection satellites to detect and observe wildfires, distributing unclassified info amongst firefighting networks, based on the Nationwide Guard. Particular intelligence specialists work to map scorching areas of lively hearth on roughly 15-minute intervals, offering imaging at a few 400-meter decision, SeLegue mentioned.
Although CalFire and the Angeles Nationwide Forest each have been utilizing this system throughout the Eaton hearth and have been in unified command with L.A. County, Oliva mentioned, the county hearth company was “not conscious that it was an obtainable device that might precisely observe a hearth’s development and no different companies that responded to the Eaton hearth … shared any Fireguard knowledge with us.”
Officers with companies which were utilizing FireGuard described it as a useful utility in a rising panorama of fireside expertise, principally used for higher-level decision-making.
“FireGuard will be one piece of this,” mentioned Andrew Dowd, a spokesperson for the Ventura County Hearth Division. He referred to as it “one small device within the toolbox.”
Whereas some helicopters have been grounded throughout the 2024 Mountain hearth, Dowd mentioned, fixed-wing plane have been nonetheless capable of fly, so FireGuard wasn’t relied on for situational consciousness.
“On sure fires, after I’m not getting anything, I’ve positively used it,” mentioned Erin Opliger, a particular tasks chief with the San Bernardino County Hearth Division, who works on geographic info techniques and knowledge analytics for the company. “It does present [a fire’s] normal unfold.”
Suzann Leininger, who works on intelligence with CalFire-San Diego County, mentioned the maps from the FireGuard program don’t present precise perimeters however nonetheless present helpful development info.
“It’s actually useful once you don’t have any type of flight obtainable and when it’s too windy to fly,” Leininger mentioned.
However understanding this system and ensuring it’s truly helpful — not simply put in — is probably a very powerful half, UC Berkeley’s Gollner mentioned.
“Loads of the planning must be accomplished earlier than the hearth ever began,” Gollner mentioned. “There must be a course of, as a result of there’s lots of radio visitors, lots of issues [going on] and also you’re already in an intense state of affairs…. It’s nice to have new knowledge, however you additionally need to be expert at the right way to use it, and to make that plan prematurely.”
Tyrie agreed that would be the problem.
“There’s 1,000,000 knowledge sources that you might layer into a typical working image,” he mentioned. “How do you make choices based mostly on that within the second?”
This story was printed with assist from the Institute for Journalism & Pure Assets.
