Los Angeles Fire Department crews were ordered to abandon a smoldering hillside blaze that later reignited into the catastrophic Palisades Fire — a move firefighters on the ground warned was a "bad idea," The Los Angeles Times reported.
According to text messages reviewed by the Times, crews at the site of the Lachman Fire — an 8-acre blaze that broke out on New Year's Day and was declared contained the next day — told their battalion chief that "the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch."
Despite those warnings, the chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the area on Jan. 2, rather than remain to check for lingering embers that could reignite, according to the Times' report Thursday.
Days later, on Jan. 7, strong Santa Ana winds fanned those buried hot spots back to life, touching off the Palisades Fire, which tore through Pacific Palisades, killing 12 people and destroying or damaging more than 200 homes and structures.
Prosecutors say the original Lachman Fire was started by an Uber driver, Jonathan Rinderknecht, who is facing multiple federal charges. What remained beneath the surface, firefighters now say, was never fully extinguished.
The Times reported that rank-and-file firefighters had voiced concerns at the time, with one text message saying it was a "bad idea" to leave the burn scar unprotected given the visible smoldering terrain.
"And the rest is history," one firefighter wrote in recent weeks, referring to the inferno that followed.
Mayor Karen Bass fired Fire Chief Kristin Crowley in February, citing "leadership failures" within the department's wildfire response — though her office and other LAFD officials declined or did not return Times requests for comment about the Lachman and Palisades fires.
Officials have maintained they believed the first blaze had been fully contained.
The Palisades Fire ranks among the most devastating in Los Angeles history, scorching thousands of acres of hillside neighborhoods overlooking the Pacific Ocean and forcing mass evacuations amid fierce winds and drought conditions.
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