Los Angeles county fire officials did not discriminate on the basis of race or socioeconomic status and did not delay in their evacuation orders during last year’s deadly Eaton fire in Altadena, a consulting firm found on Monday.
At the behest of the county and its fire department, the California-based firm Citygate Associates conducted an investigation into how evacuation alerts were deployed last January, after emergency response officials came under fierce scrutiny for reported delays.
On the evening of 7 January 2025, the Eaton blaze began, ultimately ravaging more than 9,000 buildings and killing 19 people in the San Gabriel Mountains’ foothill communities.
Citygate wrote in its report that fire officials had been blind, at many times, to the “atypical” blaze’s progression. The firm interviewed fire and sheriff’s department officials and reviewed dispatch logs, weather data and alert records.
Aircraft operations were grounded due to high winds, according to the firm. Warnings and orders were issued as officials became aware of the fire’s spread into north-western Altadena.
The individuals who perished mostly lived west of Lake Avenue, a major thoroughfare that stretches north-south. In that western corridor lay a historic African American, middle-class enclave.
According to some media reports, residents in west Altadena received orders to evacuate nearly 10 hours later than their counterparts to the east. Outcry erupted from the fire’s survivors. In February, California attorney general Rob Bonta launched a civil rights investigation concerning the emergency response.
“The Altadena community deserves transparency, which is why I initiated this independent investigation,” said fire chief Anthony Marrone.
“While the report provides an honest account of our operations, we recognize that no investigation can truly capture the horror and tragedy residents endured. My focus is to ensure that the lessons learned from the Eaton and Palisades fires are turned into lasting changes that will better protect our residents and neighborhoods into the future.”
Alluding to the debate about how race and class may have factored into the emergency response, Citygate said that evacuation planners had relied on major north-south and east-west streets such as Lake avenue as anchors for evacuation zones.
Citygate also said the fire department’s resources were stretched thin due to a rapidly expanding fire that same day in Pacific Palisades, a Los Angeles neighborhood about 34 miles (55km) to the west.
Altadena for Accountability, a group that has backed Bonta’s investigation, panned the report as “pages of deflection” in a Tuesday statement.
“Fires and emergencies rarely come without chaos. First responders and tax funded agencies have a duty to treat communities equitably and to prevent harm that is preventable,” the group said. “The complexity of the fire is not an excuse.”
The advocacy group took fault with the firm’s methodology, saying the emphasis on the accounts of “department insiders” minimized the experiences of residents who were on the scene.
