To the editor: Much blame has been cast on the Los Angeles Fire Department for abandoning the site of the Lachman fire before it was fully extinguished, thereby allowing it to rekindle as the Palisades fire (“3 critical days, many ignored warnings: How the LAFD failed to prevent the Palisades inferno,” March 11). The LAFD does not have enough resources to assign a fire crew to monitor a situation for a week. There is a gap in resources.
What is missing is a trained volunteer crew that can be assigned in shifts to monitor 24/7 for many days at a time. A team could be stationed for as long as needed, much like the volunteers who serve in mountain lookouts.
A team of ham radio operators would be ideal fire monitors. Ham operators specialize in emergency communications. They have specialized communications equipment and training, and they already have established relationships with many law enforcement agencies.
A new volunteer monitoring service might fill the gap in our fire management arsenal.
Carina Lister, Long Beach
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To the editor: The Los Angeles Times article on the “missed chances” by LAFD is one of many that bring into question the preventative measures and response of the agency to this disaster. This was a situation that exceeded the abilities of everyone (myself included) except for the trained and experienced professionals of the LAFD. They were put in a no-win situation.
Having said that, I was disgusted to read the statement released by the LAFD spokesperson that “the Lachman and Palisades Fire incidents would not be matters of discussion had this individual not allegedly initiated the original fire.” I beg to differ. Regardless of how any fire is initiated, there should be effective and comprehensive measures in place in order to combat it. Does the LAFD have different procedures for suppressing fires that originate via acts of God versus arson?
Given the chance to argue its case, the LAFD chose to employ the technique used by our present administration in Washington: Whenever there is a crisis, blame others. I am not sure that the people who lost their homes to this horrible event care about how the fire started. What they would be understandably interested in is the possible fact that the escalation of the fire could have been avoided by competent firefighting procedures.
Whoever signed off on this messaging needs to reconsider their effort to pass responsibility onto others. If mistakes were made, own it. Learn from it. We all still have the utmost respect for the work of those brave firefighters.
Jameson Barton, Riverside