Firefighters took 20 minutes to respond to the Palisades Fire on January 7, according to the New York Times, confirming what sources have told Breitbart News over the past two weeks about the city’s poor reaction.
Breitbart News learned from local neighbors that while there was a fire engine near the origin of the fire, due to a traffic accident, it took 20-25 minutes for a helicopter to arrive at the top of the mountain ridge above Pacific Palisades where the fire began, and 44 minutes for a full response by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Resident: Firefighters Did Not Respond to Palisades Fire for 44 Minutes https://t.co/dellNVEcYe via @BreitbartNews
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) January 15, 2025
Firefighters have told Breitbart News that they did not pre-deploy ahead of the fire, despite warnings of extreme winds, due to budget cuts by Mayor Karen Bass and the city council that discouraged the use of overtime pay for pre-deployment.
The Times reported Saturday:
The [Times‘] review showed a series of planning failures, delayed evacuations and significant shortfalls in firefighting resources that together hampered efforts to limit the spread.
Fire dispatch transmissions suggest that firefighters did not arrive on scene until about 20 minutes after the first 911 call in Pacific Palisades, a possible missed chance to stamp out the blaze while it was still small, the review showed.
Residents are still piecing together evidence about how the fire started. Many believe that it was caused by re-ignition of a burn scar from a fire caused by fireworks set off by hikers on New Year’s Eve, though arson is also a possibility.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
