Los Angeles Fire Department crews were ordered to abandon a smoldering hillside blaze that later reignited into the catastrophic Palisades Fire — a move firefighters on the ground warned was a “bad idea,” The Los Angeles Times reported.
According to text messages reviewed by the Times, crews at the site of the Lachman Fire — an 8-acre blaze that broke out on New Year’s Day and was declared contained the next day — told their battalion chief that “the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch.”
Despite those warnings, the chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the area on Jan. 2, rather than remain to check for lingering embers that could reignite, according to the Times’ report Thursday.
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