In Emotional Testimony Palisades Residents Bemoan Fire Response

The Palisades fire was entirely preventable, several residents testified, if firefighters on the ground had fully extinguished a Jan. 1 brush fire allegedly caused by an arsonist just north of the Palisades. And the inferno’s uncontrolled race through the community could have been mitigated, witnesses testified, if Los Angeles fire and water officials had not drained the Santa Inez reservoir and kept it empty for months, causing dry hydrants and weak water pressure as the blaze engulfed the Palisades.

Several displaced residents pleaded with the senators to investigate the factors leading to such widespread devastation, as well as the burdensome rebuilding process.

“The pattern is clear: Local government failed us on Jan. 7 and continues to fail us,” said Jessica Rogers, president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association. “We’ve been forced to lead our own recovery because the city won’t.”

Rachel Schwartz, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor and former Palisades resident, lamented that the funds her insurance company provided only cover roughly half of what is needed to rebuild her home of 25 years. She said she speaks for numerous senior citizens who are devastated by losing their homes and the biggest financial assets they had in the twilight of their lives. Schwartz cast the financial and emotional pain inflicted by the fire as a loss of dignity that she and other seniors worry they can never recover from.

“Senators, I am not asking for pity,” Schwartz said. “I am asking for help. Not only for me but for everyone who lost their homes and feels forgotten.”

The public hearing was held in the Palisades’ American Legion hall across the street from the burned-out remains of the Village School, a private elementary school. It’s the first public sign of the investigation into the fire and slow recovery that Johnson and Scott announced in September. The senators launched the probe after meeting with reality TV star Spencer Pratt, whose home, as well as his parents’ home, was destroyed in the fire.

The federal role, the senators argued, is necessary to “uncover and expose” the truth about how state and local governments failed to adequately prevent and respond to the blaze, which ignited and quickly incinerated the coastal community when hurricane-force Santa Ana winds broke out, fanning what appears to be smoldering remains of a previous New Year’s Eve brush fire.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez assailed the hearing as a witch hunt by MAGA Republicans attempting to blast California Democrats, especially Gov. Gavin Newsom, a leading Democratic contender for the 2028 presidential race. Newsom last week won a major political victory in California, as voters overwhelmingly supported his gerrymandering ballot initiative aimed at eliminating four to six GOP seats in the House of Representatives.

Bass countered that the senators did not reach out to her office to discuss how they could work with the city of Los Angeles to help Palisades property owners rebuild. They also didn’t communicate with her about the status of critical federal disaster aid to support the ongoing recovery efforts.

“Mayor Bass worked in Congress for more than a decade with colleagues on both sides of the aisle,” Bass’ office said in a statement Thursday. “She will work with anyone, no matter their party, to support the Palisades community, and she remains laser-focused on expediting the rebuilding of homes, businesses, and community spaces to get families home — not on political theatre.”

After the hearing, Scott acknowledged that Bass’ office had provided some information to his office but needs to hand over more.

The senators have requested documents from the State of California, from different local officials, including Mayor Bass’ office and former Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley’s office. Bass’ office and several state offices say they have turned over documents to the senator who threatened subpoenas if they don't get what they’re looking for.

During testimony before the panel Thursday, Pratt said he was grateful to the senators for traveling across the country to explore the factors that contributed to the widespread devastation in Palisades, adding that he was bewildered by California’s own senators’ lack of attention to the matter.

“My family has not lost our hope, but we did lose our home and everything we own in the Palisades fire,” he said, sporting a hat with the words, “Newsom will never be president.”

“It's been 10 months,” he added, “and our government leaders, instead of helping us rebuild, have only served to make the rebuilding process so painful and slow that many just quit and are forced out of their hometown through attrition so vultures like Gavin Newsom and [state Sen.] Scott Weiner have a blank slate to remake the Palisades in the vision of their wealthy donors and foreign investors.”

Tom Doran, 65, a resident of Palisades for most of his life, lamented that he was trying to retire but was struggling to do so amid the financial blow of losing his home and his in-laws’ house at the same time. He described a harrowing and helpless scene on the day of the fire “filled with smoke and confusion” but no sirens or assistance.

In the weeks after the fire, his mother-in-law survived several strokes and emergency surgery. Her health problems, coupled with the technological knowledge required to file the multitude of online forms, digital portals, and insurance agents’ and city officials’ phone hold times, make it nearly impossible for elderly victims to navigate, Doran said.

Doran said his 96-year-old mother died three months ago after all the stress and sadness of losing her home of five decades. His 99-year-old father remains pessimistic about rebuilding after losing many of his friends in the fire. His mother, he said, was filled with “confusion and sorrow.”

“Every step of the process was overwhelming,” he said. “And even now, 10 months later, we’re still cataloging every single possession we owned for insurance purposes, every pot, every book, every photograph, line by line, while it’s abundantly clear that it was a total loss — the emotional toll of having to relive what we lost just to prove it is staggering.”

So far, congressional Republicans have focused mainly on the Palisades fire, which ignited Jan. 7, incinerating everything in its path from Pacific Palisades to Malibu and some surrounding areas. Critics have pointed to the need to scrutinize the cause of the Eaton fire, which was sparked on the same day and was even deadlier, killing 19 people and destroying 9,000 buildings.

In early September, federal prosecutors with the Justice Department said the cause of that fire is likely negligence in maintaining high-tension power lines operated by the electrical utility Southern California Edison.

The DOJ’s civil lawsuit is seeking reimbursement for the costs of containing the fire and rehabilitating 8,000 burned acres of Angeles National Forest. “SCE knew about the potential danger posed by the high wind event and the risks posed by power and transmission lines but failed to take action to prevent it from igniting a fire,” the lawsuit states.

SoCal Edison will draw from a state wildfire fund to cover costs and compensate victims of the Eaton fire. The state-administered fund – jointly financed by ratepayers and utility shareholders – expects to pay “tens of billions” of dollars in claims tied to the blaze, the costliest wildfire since the fund was set up to help compensate victims of the PG&E-sparked Camp Fire, which leveled the town of Paradise in 2017.

A group of thousands of Eaton fire victims has asked Newsom to block state approval needed for SoCal Edison to collect higher profits until it pays $200,000 to each household displaced by the January blaze.

The 8,500-member Eaton Fire Survivors Network said many victims are teetering on homelessness, while arguing that SoCal Edison could recoup the money from a $21 billion state fund Newsom helped engineer in 2018. Newsom, working with taxpayer-funded attorneys, developed the legislative package designed to bail out the three privately owned utilities that have ignited the most destructive wildfires over the last decade.