What — or who— started the Palisades fire? Two leading theories emerge as investigation intensifies
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For the last few weeks, a team of investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has worked out of a command post in the Highlands neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.
It’s here, near a popular hiking trail, where officials believe the Palisades fire began around 10:30 a.m. Jan. 7. The remnants of thousands of burned-out homes line the path the flames took down from the hillside as it charged all the way to the ocean.
But the cause remains a mystery that this team is trying to solve.
Investigators have scoured each part of the trail and hillside, breaking it down into a grid. They have examined 250 leads, obtained 90 hours of relevant video and conducted 50 interviews.
Coverage of the fires ravaging Altadena, Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Pasadena, including stories about the devastation, issues firefighters faced and the weather.
Fifteen ATF team members across the country with various science backgrounds armed with high-tech mapping, drones and a portable lab are aiding in the investigation, officials said.
ATF officials declined to provide information about what they suspect started the Palisades fire, which charred 23,400 acres and leveled more than 6,800 structures, including many homes.
But sources with knowledge of the inquiry said there are two leading theories: An 8-acre blaze that fire officials thought they had put out on Jan. 1 in the same area reignited and spread because of intense winds, or a new fire was somehow sparked nearby that morning. Sources have told The Times the blaze appears to have human origins.
A focus on earlier fire
The Los Angeles Fire Department declined to answer specific questions about the Jan. 1 blaze, called the Lachman fire, saying the files were “sealed” and were part of the ongoing investigation into the Palisades fire.
“We won’t leave a fire that has any hot spots. But with that, I will tell you that the investigation, the team that we have on board right now, will be able to determine whether or not that did indeed happen,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told residents during a community forum this month.”I can look you in the eye and tell you that full disclosure if that indeed is what they find out, we will tell you that.”
The Lachman fire was reported about 12:17 a.m. on New Year’s Day in the hillside above Pacific Palisades by a resident whose home is about two blocks from the popular Skull Rock trail. Sources with knowledge of the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly told The Times the Lachman fire appears to have been sparked by fireworks.
We’re tracking damage assessments from the Eaton and Palisades fires, which destroyed 12,000 structures in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
Water-dropping helicopters initially were not able to fly because of wind, according to the agency, but around 1:40 a.m. they began launching an aerial attack to support crews on the ground. News footage captured the charge, with walls of flames towering over homes and firefighters with hoses running into backyards.
Shortly after 3:30 a.m., fire officials reported they had stopped forward progress of the blaze.
A little over an hour later, LAFD reported that firefighters had “completed the hose line around the perimeter of the fire and it is fully contained.” However, some firefighters remained at the site to mop up and ensure the fire didn’t flare up again.
Assistant Chief Joe Everett, who oversees LAFD’s West Bureau, which includes Pacific Palisades, said firefighters conducted a cold trailing operation at the site in which crews feel for any lingering heat along the fire’s edge, dig out every live spot and trench live edges of the fire to ensure nothing can later flare up.
They kept patrol on the site for more than 36 hours, Everett told residents at a community meeting this month.
“I can tell you those people on that fire ground were highly qualified and well trusted,” he said.
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Everett expressed skepticism that the Palisades fire was sparked by a rekindling of the earlier blaze.
“That fire was dead out. If it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon,” he said.
LAFD officials declined to detail whether they conducted thermal imaging of the area in the aftermath. Agencies frequently use thermal imaging during large wildfires to find hot spots during periods when there is no visible light or in conditions with heavy smog or mist.
Another fire in the same area
UC San Diego cameras that monitor the mountains and hills, including Pacific Palisades, captured the Jan. 1 blaze. The Times reviewed available footage over the next six days, and no new smoke was visible. But about 10:30 a.m. Jan. 7, new smoke is seen in the same area.
By midmorning, firefighters were back at the same Palisades hillside amid hurricane-force winds fighting what would become a much larger inferno: the Palisades fire.
Palisades resident Darrin Hurwitz told The Times this month that he was hiking in the area — a five-mile loop that took him above Skull Rock and gave him a view of the burn scar from the New Year’s Day fire — on the morning of Jan. 7. It’s a busy trail, but on that day the open space seemed quiet, he said.
“Around the same time, I noticed a bit of a smoky smell. I didn’t make much of it. I figured it was either coming from somewhere else or was the remnants of the fire itself,” he said.
Others also smelled smoke in the area that morning, but flames weren’t seen until about 10:15 a.m.
A Los Angeles firefighter who was among the first on the scene acknowledged over the radio that they were going “back up to where the Lachman fire was.”
How the investigation will play out
The ATF is seeking to issue a report on the cause of the fire in about 60 days. That would be considerably faster than for the deadly August 2023 fire on the Hawaiian island of Maui, which took a year. But that may depend on whether more sophisticated tests are needed back at the bureau’s Maryland fire lab.
Complex fire investigations in which a cause isn’t immediately clear can sometimes take many months to conclude. Typically, investigators will start by finding the area of ignition, which they determine largely through burn patterns. In a massive inferno, such as the Palisades fire, that process alone can take more than a week, experts say.
After they find the location of the fire start, investigators will search for any evidence that could point to the source of ignition and any witness statements or videos that can help them piece together how the fire began.
Materials found at a fire scene will often need to be tested, and those results can take weeks or months, said Gianni Muschetto, staff chief of law enforcement for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“These larger fires take time,” Muschetto said. “Sometimes it’s months, and sometimes just based on the evidence we have that needs to be evaluated, it just takes time to do.”
The first images of Palisades fire, as it ignited in the brush on a trail above Pacific Palisades, are eerily similar to those captured as fire lighted up the night’s sky as the new year began.
As the cleanup phase of recovery begins after the devastating fires in L.A. County, displaced residents grapple with new uncertainty surrounding the cost and timeline for rebuilding.
Fire experts say it’s possible for a blaze to rekindle days and even months in some environments after an initial fire is thought to be extinguished.
The immense Oakland Hills fire in 1991, which destroyed 2,500 structures, exploded after firefighters believed they contained an earlier 6-acre fire. Firefighters left equipment at the scene but did not continuously monitor it. Winds picked up, and the conflagration consumed homes.
The Maui fire, the deadliest in more than a century, killed at least 101 people and also ignited from an earlier brush fire caused by downed power lines that firefighters believed they had snuffed.
Rekindling days or weeks after a wildfire has been put out is not a phenomenon that frequently occurs. It’s more typical for rekindling to happen when firefighters are still on scene mopping up, allowing them to get control of it quickly, Muschetto said.
“You’re trying to get all those hot spots out, but occasionally something will still hold that heat and blow something across the line or burn under through the roots and have enough exposure to vegetative material to burn out and cause a fire,” he said.
Ed Nordskog, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s arson investigator who looked into 2,500 fires, said that in forestry environments particularly, embers can bury themselves in tree roots and get covered by heavy ash. They can stay buried until a wind event sets them free.
The U.S. Forest Service uses infrared technology to monitor fires underbrush for sometimes weeks after a blaze is contained. Nordskog said thermal imaging is the safest way to check to prevent such an issue.
But even that isn’t a perfect solution.
“A super small smoldering fire may not put off enough heat signature for that imagery to pick it up,” Muschetto said. “That’s why the crews on the ground, especially when they are mopping up along the fire’s edge, they’re really looking for anything that’s smoking, anything that might be able to hold heat and watering that down.”
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