Earlier this year the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) allegedly allowed a small, roughly eight-acre brush fire to rekindle and ultimately destroy an entire community leaving 12 citizens dead, and now this story has stunning new developments.
According to last week’s Los Angeles Times, serious problems exist with the LAFD’s Palisades after-action report. The report’s listed author Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook declined to endorse the final version and called it “highly unprofessional.” The Times obtained seven drafts and found edits that softened language, removed material findings, and obscured key failures.
In other words, the public didn’t just get a report—it got a redacted reality. After-action reviews are supposed to search for truth. This one reads like an effort to extinguish it.
Even the whitewashed final report concedes shocking failures. The department admitted it abandoned the heel of the fire and allowed it to slip around and devastate neighborhoods in the Highlands and Malibu. Tactical patrols were neglected, leaving entire communities to burn unattended. Fast fire watch guards help ensure such oversights don’t put communities at risk.
Fixed-wing tankers weren’t ordered for nearly two hours. Resources weren’t augmented, with dozens of engines left idle in their first-in districts. Chiefs without the requisite wildland-urban interface experience were placed in command roles. Critical assignments were bypassed for more “attractive” ones.
The Times’ reporting deepens the concern. Drafts referenced an on-duty captain reporting that “the Lachman fire started up again,” pointing to a likely rekindle. That reference was removed, then restored, while the final report otherwise barely addressed the earlier blaze.
Weeks later, The Times revealed that firefighters had been ordered to roll up hoses and leave a burn area while it still smoldered—complaints that never made it into the report. Former chiefs didn’t mince words. One called the deletions “a deliberate effort to hide the truth and cover up the facts” and criticized the removal of references to national safety standards “written in the blood” of fallen firefighters.
This is not nitpicking. Rekindles are the scarlet letter of wildland firefighting. They demand humility and reform, not spin. Yet the pattern here is clear: redact, rejoice, repeat. That “R” doesn’t stand for responsibility.
The human cost makes this obscene. Thousands lost their homes; lives were lost. While victims struggle to rebuild marred in leftist red tape.
The final report does include 42 recommendations, and the department claims to have adopted many. That’s not nothing. But reforms built on half-truths are built on sand. As former Battalion Chief Rick Crawford put it, “There are major gaps in this after-action report.” You don’t close gaps by using smoke to obscure the truth.
To be clear this wasn’t an unavoidable catastrophe due to climate change or the Santa Ana winds that have been recorded since 1847 and known to the indigenous population as “devil winds.” Exaggeration cannot launder failure.
Public safety agencies must transcend politics. Trust is earned by telling the truth when it hurts. Taxpayers deserved candor. Instead, they crafted a narrative designed to shield the mayor and failed leadership from public scrutiny.
Moreover, Los Angeles won’t be alone in paying for this incompetence— American taxpayers will foot the bill as well.
Thankfully the Trump administration is signaling that it isn’t waiting for another glossy binder to tell it what everyone already knows. Instead of endless committees and overlapping authorities, President Donald Trump has moved to confront what firefighters on the ground call the “bureaucratic monster” head-on.
His approach is simple and disruptive—put one accountable leader in charge of overseeing fire operations, cutting through the maze of agencies, deputies, and advisory boards that too often paralyze decision-making when minutes matter.
Rather than allowing responsibility to be diluted across layers of management, the administration’s changes emphasize unity of command, speed, and clarity—principles long understood in emergency operations but routinely ignored by political systems.
Frank Ricci was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Ricci v Destefano. He retired as a Battalion Chief in New Haven, Conn. He has testified before Congress and is the author of the book Command Presence.Gabriel Mann is the director of the #1 rated firefighter documentary, “Hotshot”. He grew up in California fire country and spent 10 years training and embedding with fire crews and studying wildfire history.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)
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