The first 911 call came at 10:29 a.m., from a resident of Piedra Morada Drive in Pacific Palisades. Amid high winds, a fire was visible in the distance, the flames flickering over a chaparral-choked ridge.

About 11 minutes later, the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Engine 23 radioed into dispatch:

“We’re on Palisades Drive. We went past Piedra Morada. We’re still heading up to where the fire is showing.”

A firefighter sprays water on a burning house on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

It would be more than 18 minutes after the 911 call before Engine 23 or any other firefighting crew reached the scene that morning of Jan. 7, according to an LAFD incident log obtained by The Times.

Travel times were especially critical because LAFD officials had decided not to pre-deploy any engines and firefighters to the Palisades — as they had done in the past — despite being warned that some of the most dangerous winds in recent years were headed for the region.

In online alerts, the National Weather Service had highlighted the Palisades, the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood as among the areas of “greatest concern” for the expected windstorm and the extraordinary fire hazard it would bring.

A firefighter tries to put out a portion of the Pacific Palisades fire that threatens a nearby building on Sunset Boulevard on Jan. 7.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The LAFD could have sent least 10 additional engines to the Palisades before the fire — engines that could have been on patrol along the hillsides and canyons, several former top officials for the department told The Times.

Crews from those engines might have spotted the fire soon after it started, when it was still small enough to give them a chance to control it, the former officials said.

Instead, according to publicly available information, the crews nearest to the fire were based at Stations 23 and 69, both on Sunset Boulevard, about three to four miles from the Piedra Morada address on a street map.

By the time engines from the stations reached the area of the fire, the flames had begun a march that was ultimately unstoppable, eventually destroying nearly 7,000 homes and other structures and killing at least 12.

LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley did not respond to interview requests for this story. More than a month after the fire, she has not answered questions from The Times about the precise whereabouts of engines before the blaze, which engine or engines responded first, and when helicopters began dropping water on the flames, among other queries.

Mayor Karen Bass’ office also has not responded to The Times’ requests that the city release records documenting the LAFD’s actions in the early stages of the fire.

A building on Sunset Boulevard is threatened by the Palisades fire on Jan. 7.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A total of 18 firefighters are typically on duty at Stations 23 and 69 to respond to emergencies. Only 14 of them are routinely available to fight brush fires, several former LAFD chiefs told The Times. The other four are assigned to ambulances at the two stations, although they might help with evacuations or rescues during fires.

The Palisades fire’s toll might not have been as bad if extra engines had been pre-positioned much closer to the most fire-prone areas than the two Palisades stations, the ex-chiefs said.

They also noted that LAFD officials pre-deployed significantly fewer engines citywide on Jan. 7 than they did in response to wind warnings in previous years, including 2011, 2013 and 2019.

With the dire wind forecasts and a winter with almost no rain, no one knew exactly where a fire was going to break out, just that one was likely to occur and to spread quickly. But the Palisades area met the department’s criteria for significant pre-deployments because its stations face longer response times to the brush, according to the ex-chiefs.

Firetrucks line Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Jan. 8 to provide structural protection for beachfront homes.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

They said that if there had been engines available to patrol along the hills, commanders could have directed firefighters to monitor the area where the fire eventually started. Six days earlier, on New Year’s Day, a small blaze had been extinguished there but might have left smoldering embers hidden in the undergrowth, the former chiefs said.

An investigation by the LAFD and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is examining, among other possibilities, whether a wind-propelled “rekindling” from such embers caused the Jan. 7 fire.

Former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, said that chaparral can burn underground without visible flames for weeks after the original fire has been knocked down. He said he had to deal with flare-ups of unseen embers for about a week after the 2019 Getty fire, for which he served as an LAFD commander.

Former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, who is now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department. He oversaw preparations for numerous high-wind events for the LAFD, assigning extra engines to fire-prone areas.

(Los Angeles Fire Department)

Rekindles are “a very common phenomenon,” said Butler, who left the LAFD in 2021 after three decades, during which he oversaw arson investigations and other special operations for three years.

After a large fire, most of the surrounding vegetation has already burned, Butler said. But after a smaller fire like the Jan. 1 one, he said, “a rekindle can easily grow in the right conditions, like high winds.”

Butler and several other former officials said fires are always more challenging to fight in strong winds, but pre-deploying engines could enable crews to flank a blaze to “keep it skinny” — firefighter parlance for preventing it from spreading sideways — while other rigs attack the head of the flames from a safe distance with help, if available, from helicopters.

Other pre-deployed engines could guard homes in the immediate path of the fire, they said.

Instead, Engine 23 and crews from Station 69 were apparently mostly on their own in the initial ground response to the fire, according to dispatch records, radio transmissions and interviews. Engines from LAFD stations in Brentwood and Venice also responded, but that was not enough, the transmissions indicate.

Without strategically placed reinforcements, the handful of engines had virtually no prospects of carrying out the LAFD’s strategy for brush fires — hit it hard and fast, the former fire officials said.

Chula Vista firefighters keep an eye on the Palisades blaze after a phosphorus drop in Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood on Jan. 11.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The LAFD command’s failure to provide more engines put firefighters “at a strategic disadvantage from the first play,” said Rick Crawford, a former LAFD battalion chief who left the department last year after more than three decades to become emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol. “The firefighters did an outstanding job given the hand they were dealt. … They just didn’t have time to employ their normal tactics.”

Perry Vermillion, who retired as a captain after 33 years with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, agreed.

“If you don’t hit it hard in the beginning, it’s over,” said Vermillion, who fought numerous blazes in the Malibu area near the Palisades.

The LAFD should have staged engines at several points in the Palisades, Vermillion said, and kept them moving and on the lookout before the windstorm hit.

“You drive around,” he said. “You drive up the hills and learn the area. You’re on patrol. You send a couple of strike teams up here or there and hang out in a park. You move them to all different places so they’re close to the brush.”

Soon after the fire, in defending her department’s decision not to order a large pre-deployment, Crowley blamed budget cuts and a backlog of engines in ill repair. But The Times has reported that the department had more than enough working engines to send dozens of extra rigs to the Palisades and elsewhere.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, left, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, right, and Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell, rear, address the media at a news conference on Jan. 11.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Crowley and her staff have not responded to The Times’ questions about which engines were inoperable the day of the fire and the types of repairs they needed.

LAFD Deputy Chief Richard Fields, who was in charge of preparations for the life-threatening windstorm, told The Times that the engines pre-deployed early the morning of Jan. 7 — none of which were sent to the Palisades — were sufficient. Officials decided the day before to pre-deploy nine engines to Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. They said they added more the morning of Jan. 7 to cover northeast L.A., but the specific number and time of day was unclear from interviews with the officials.

Jason Hing, chief deputy of emergency operations, acknowledged that the pre-deployed engines were not enough but contended that more would not have made a difference against such a ferocious fire.

The nine pre-deployed engines were eventually dispatched to the Palisades fire by noon, according to the incident log obtained by The Times. By then, the blaze was already taking out homes.

The Palisades fire spreads through Mandeville Canyon toward Encino on Jan. 10.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The department also decided not to order about 1,000 firefighters ending their shifts early on Jan. 7 to remain on duty to staff reserve engines and perform other tasks, The Times reported. By commandeering this extra staffing and pulling other engines from stations around the city, the LAFD could have sent at least 10 more rigs to each of the city’s five wildland corridors, including the Palisades, most at risk for fires, the former chiefs said.

Without that kind of backup or anything like it, Engine 23 and one or both engines from Station 69 had their work cut out for them.

As Engine 23 passed Piedra Morada, crews were asked to assess the threat to homes, once they laid eyes on the fire, the radio traffic indicated. Twenty additional engines, they were told, were on the way.

“Once you get up there, let me know what we’re looking like, if we’ve got any immediate impact to structures and what you need,” a voice said.

A helicopter made it over first and surveyed the situation from above.

A firefighter battles the Palisades blaze as homes burn along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Jan. 8.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s pushing directly towards the Palisades,” someone radioed from the sky. “This has the potential for 200 acres in the next 20 minutes. You probably have an impact time into structures being threatened in under 20 minutes.”

Firefighters on the ground then weighed in. “Thirty acres of medium to heavy brush burning toward the ocean,” one crew member said. “Keep all companies coming.”

Crews reported burning embers flying a half-mile to three-quarters of a mile ahead of the main blaze. Within an hour of the first 911 call, homes had started to burn.

Terry Fahn, who lost his home in the blaze, expected firefighters to be up in the hills ahead of time, given the severe wind forecast and the New Year’s Day brush fire that had burned through the same area.

“Staging equipment up there would’ve been huge,” he said.