Attorneys for the city of Los Angeles moved this week to block the release of long-awaited depositions of firefighters that could provide a deeper understanding of their decisions and actions in the days leading up to the deadly Palisades fire.
The attorneys representing the city in a lawsuit brought by Palisades fire victims invoked a general protective order the parties agreed to in June, which allows any side to designate all or part of any testimony in the case as confidential for up to 30 days. The parties are supposed to meet during that period to work out which parts should stay confidential, with any disagreements resolved by the judge.
The Los Angeles Fire Department has faced growing scrutiny of its handling of the New Year’s Eve Lachman fire ever since federal officials revealed that its embers rekindled into the Jan. 7 Palisades blaze that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
In October, the Times reported that an LAFD battalion chief ordered firefighters to pick up their hoses from the Lachman burn scar on Jan. 2, even though crews warned that the ground was still smoldering. The LAFD also did not use thermal imaging technology to detect underground hot spots.
But it is still not clear why LAFD made those decisions. More than a year after the Palisades fire, the public has yet to hear directly from firefighters about their mop up of the Lachman fire. The depositions of a dozen firefighters over the next two weeks — part of the lawsuit against the city and state — offer the public a rare opportunity to hear firefighters’ accounts of what happened.
The depositions began Monday with the testimony of Capt. Cesar Garcia and Firefighter Michael Contreras. Garcia and Contreras worked at Fire Station 23, one of the two stations in the Palisades, at the time of the fires.
As their examinations were wrapping up, attorneys representing the city said they were provisionally designating both depositions confidential under the protective order, according to Alexander “Trey” Robertson, who is representing fire victims.
“It’s clear they’re trying to put a blanket of silence over these firefighters depositions,” Robertson said. “It’s just a delay tactic to try to keep it shielded from the public.”
Dan Levin, an attorney representing the city, said the move gives the city time to review the testimony and determine which parts, if any, should stay confidential.
“The City provisionally designated deposition testimony of LAFD firefighters as confidential under the Court’s protective order so that the city could review the transcripts to determine what, if any, portions of the testimony should remain confidential to protect individuals’ privacy or other confidential information,” Levin said. “This is a standard procedure in litigation. The plaintiffs agreed to the court order creating this procedure.”
The protective order allows a party to designate part of all of the testimony as “confidential,” defined as information that the party “believes in good faith … is entitled to confidential treatment under applicable law.”
According to Robertson, nothing in the firefighters’ testimony warrants confidential treatment under California law. Typically, he said, “confidential” information governed by a protective order refers to sensitive data like trade secrets or personal information, such as Social Security numbers and health records.
“These are just fact witnesses, eyewitnesses, essentially,” Robertson said. “We’re asking them … What did they do? What did they see in their line of duty?”
Robertson also said that LAFD officials were in the room during Monday’s depositions, “watching and monitoring what the firefighters were saying,” which he suggested may have amounted to an intimidation tactic.
“It’s very unusual,” he said.
An LAFD spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why officials were in the room.
Firefighters are being deposed a month after plaintiffs’ attorneys questioned employees of California State Parks. In December, a handful of state employees, including state park rangers and environmental scientists, testified about their role in the hours and days after the Lachman fire ignited, offering new details of their actions and interactions with firefighters.
Attorneys for the state did not act to make the testimony of its employees provisionally confidential. The Times reviewed the depositions, as well as text messages of several State Parks employees.
The testimony and texts show that California State Parks’ initial concern when the fire broke out was whether the fire was on park land and whether firefighting efforts and equipment would harm federally endangered plants and artifacts.
Once they determined the burn scar did not include sensitive areas, they pivoted to other concerns: asking firefighters to cover a section of a fire break they cut through unburned vegetation with freshly cut brush and urging them not to wait too long before removing hoses.
The first state park ranger to arrive on the Lachman burn scar the morning of Jan. 1 testified that she she saw the ground smoldering but did not report to LAFD or anyone at state parks. She didn’t think the smoldering warranted particular concern, given the fire had just been contained a few hours earlier. LAFD hoses, she noted, were still on site.
