What officials did as park smoldered

Texts and depositions detail state’s actions between the Lachman and Palisades fires.

- JENNY JARVIE AND ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN

COMMUNITY United Methodist Church burns in Pacific Palisades during the deadly Palisades fire Jan. 8.

An hour after midnight Jan. 1, as a small brush fire blazed across Topanga State Park, a California State Parks employee texted the Los Angeles Fire Department’s heavy equipment supervisor to find out if they were sending in bulldozers.

“Heck no that area is full of endangered plants,” Capt. Richard Diede replied at 9:52 a.m, five hours after LAFD declared the fire contained.

“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area,” he wrote. “I’m so trained.”

The exchange between the state and LAFD employees is part of a batch of newly-released text messages and depositions from California State Parks staffers that offers new details of the state’s actions and interactions with firefighters in the critical days after the Lachman fire ignited and rekindled Jan. 7 into the deadly Palisades blaze.

The Los Angeles Fire Department has faced criticism for not fully extinguishing the Lachman fire. In October, The Times reported that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area Jan. 2, even though crews warned that the ground was still smoldering. The LAFD also decided not to use thermal imaging technology to detect heat underground.

But Palisades residents have also sued the state, which owns Topanga State Park, alleging it failed in the week between the two fires to inspect the burn scar after firefighters left and make sure a “dangerous condition” did not exist on its property.

LAFD was the agency sponsible for putting out the fire.

But plaintiffs’ attorneys allege the state should have done more to monitor the burn scar and ensure the area was safe.