No 'smoking gun': Why Eaton fire report didn't assign blame

The long-awaited Los Angeles County report examining the botched evacuation alerts in Altadena during the deadly Eaton fire cited a long list of shortcomings, from preparation to tactics.

- BY GRACE TOOHEY, JENNY JARVIE AND REBECCA ELLIS

PRESIDENT TRUMP, with granddaughter Kai, spoke about the indictment of James Comey with reporters.

But the after-action report into the fire that killed 19 people all but one of them in west Altadena stopped short of singling out individual leaders for those issues, and it failed to provide a detailed explanation for why evacuation orders in west Altadena came hours after smoke and flames started to threaten the area.

While the report, by Virginia-based consulting firm McChrystal Group, confirmed The Times' reporting that first revealed the late evacuation orders, it did not detail exactly who or what was responsible for the breakdown, which county officials have previously called "an epic fail."

That lack of blame appears to have arisen by design, despite fire victims' repeated calls for accountability.

"This report does not investigate wrongdoing or assign blame," the authors state at the beginning of the 132-page report, commissioned by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors at a cost of $2 million and released Thursday. "Its purpose is to assess the County's alert and evacuation systems ... and provide actionable recommendations to strengthen future response efforts."

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, called for the review after The Times reported in January that almost all the Eaton fire deaths occurred on the unincorporated town's west side. In her motion, Barger cited "questions that have arisen" about the evacuation process.

A RESIDENT defends his Altadena home during the deadly Eaton fire, which saw botched evacuation orders.

(ROBERT GAUTHIER Los Angeles Times)