Early in Michael McIndoe’s shift on Jan. 2, 2025, his crew got their marching orders: Pick up hoses left overnight at the scene of the Lachman fire.
McIndoe, a captain at Fire Station 69 in Pacific Palisades, didn’t think the plan was a good idea, he said in sworn testimony obtained by The Times. He had read the National Weather Service’s forecast for the day — temperatures were expected to be warmer — and handling any lingering hot spots would be easier with hoses in place.
While he was still at the station, he said, he relayed his concerns by phone to Battalion Chief Mario Garcia, who was in charge of the operation.
Garcia “said something along the lines of, ‘OK. Let me go check it out, and then I’ll get back to you,’ ” McIndoe testified last month.
Despite the warning, Garcia’s orders never changed, and McIndoe spent a couple hours or so that morning rolling up hose lines.
At one point, McIndoe said, he came across a smoldering ash pit. He retrieved a backpack with water from his engine, sprayed into the ground with a couple gallons of water and dug up the dirt with his hand tool until he was satisfied it was cool.
Days later, amid high winds, embers from the Lachman fire ignited into the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
McIndoe was one of a dozen Los Angeles firefighters deposed in January in a lawsuit filed by Palisades fire victims against the city and the state. Transcripts and videos of the testimony were released Thursday and Friday, backing up earlier reporting by The Times that crews were ordered to pack up their hoses despite signs that the Lachman fire was not completely out.
One firefighter, Scott Pike, testified that he informed a captain of hot spots and ash pits in the area but that he never received orders to take care of the hazards.
Garcia testified that no one informed him of any concerns about picking up the hoses and that he believed the decision was made before his shift.
The testimony raises questions about why LAFD officials did not address concerns expressed to them about weather conditions and potentially dangerous hot spots that could flare up into another fire. With Pike and McIndoe saying they were following directions from above, and Garcia and the battalion chief from the prior shift appearing to pass the buck to others, it is unclear who made the decision to leave the Lachman fire.
LAFD spokesperson Stephanie Bishop declined to answer the question of who decided to pull the hoses, citing an ongoing investigation. She also would not answer whether officials had identified the captain whom Pike spoke with or determined what the captain did with his concerns.
Pike said he did not know the captain’s name but believed the captain was from Engine 69.
McIndoe testified that he was the captain on Engine 69 that day. In an email Saturday, McIndoe said he was not authorized to speak with the media but wanted to correct the record: “I did not speak to, nor do I recall seeing, Firefighter Pike the day that we picked up hose at the Lachman fire.”
Garcia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pike did not respond to a request for comment.
That day, McIndoe testified, he saw Garcia on the hill picking up hoses and brought up their earlier conversation.
“I just went up to him, and I said, ‘Hey, I hope you don’t think I’m just trying to get out of work,’ ” McIndoe said. “And he said, no, that’s — that’s fine. Something along those lines, and that that’s all I can really recall.”
He said he was trying to clarify with Garcia that he believed “that the hose should stay up a little bit longer.”
Garcia testified that when he got to the burn scar, no one raised any concerns about the hose pickup, nor did he see any need to leave the equipment at the site.
He said he thought the decision to pick up the hoses was made before his shift — though he was “not 100 percent sure” — and that it was a “collaborative decision, based off all the information that was received.”
By the time he got up to the burn area, Garcia testified, half the hose had already been picked up. He walked the perimeter to ensure there was a line cut around it and that it was cold, and did not see any smoke or any sign that the fire was not fully extinguished.
“Came across several members,” he said. “Nobody mentioned anything about there being any concerns of any sort.”
Battalion Chief Martin Mullen, who was on duty before Garcia, testified that he walked the perimeter four times and left the hose lines in place overnight as a precaution, keeping two assistant chiefs, Vinny Alvarado and Joseph Everett, in the loop. Mullen said they informed another top chief, Phillip Fligiel.
The hoses could be hooked up again quickly “if something were to happen,” Mullen testified.
Mullen testified that he also notified Garcia: “I told him I left him hose lines in place overnight, you need to walk that and make sure there’s nothing going on up there.”
Mullen, who said he was not involved in deciding when to pick up the hoses, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In an email Sunday, Everett said: “I was not present or assigned to that incident. As a result I made no command decisions nor do I have information as to anyones testimony.”
Text messages obtained by The Times through a public records request in December show that Fligiel, Alvarado and Everett were making plans to remove the equipment on Jan. 1. The Lachman fire, which federal prosecutors believe was deliberately set, flared up shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025. A few hours later, at 4:46 a.m., the LAFD announced that it was fully contained at eight acres.
“I imagine it might take all day to get that hose off the hill,” Fligiel said in a group chat early the morning of Jan. 1. “Make sure that plan is coordinated.”
At 1:35 p.m. on Jan. 2, Garcia texted Fligiel and Everett: “All hose and equipment has been picked up.”
Earlier that day, Pike was making troubling observations that led him to think that the entire area needed to be re-investigated. He saw about five smoky areas and ash pits, including one he remembered vividly that was too hot to touch with his gloved hand.
“So I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it, and there was, like red hot, like, coals,” he testified. “And I even heard crackling.”
Pike, a 23-year LAFD veteran based at a station in Sunland, was working an overtime shift at Fire Station 23, the LAFD’s second outpost in the Palisades, that day. He relayed his observations to a captain and two firefighters.
“That’s how I approached him, is like, ‘Hey, Cap … We have hot spots in general. We have some ash pits,’ ” Pike testified about his conversation with the captain. “That’s an alert to double-check the whole area and maybe we need to switch our tactics.”
Pike testified that it was not his job “to overstep and tell him what to do. He earned that rank.”
The captain, he said, suggested possibly bringing hand tools or a backpack filled with water up the hill to extinguish any hot spots. Pike went back to picking up the hose while awaiting new orders, which never came.
Pike testified that he felt his colleagues — the captain and two firefighters — blew him off.
“It kind of sits heavy with me that nobody listened to me,” he said.
In his deposition, McIndoe did not recall details about other conversations he had that day.
He was asked by a plaintiffs’ attorney: “Any dialogue with anyone else that you haven’t told me about concerning any of the work that was being done up there at the Lachman fire site, in terms of checking for smokers? Making sure that you got all the hose? Anything like that?”
McIndoe responded: “I don’t recall specific conversations. I think I may have had a conversation with one or two of the other captains that were on scene before we left.”
McIndoe testified that he told that captain — whom he said was from Fire Station 37 — that he thought it would be a good idea to leave the hose out because the warm weather could preheat the ground and bring up smokers, “and it would be nice to have the hose lines in place to address those.”
The Times reported in October that crews were ordered to leave the Lachman fire, even though the ground was still smoldering and rocks were hot to the touch.
In a text message reviewed by The Times, a firefighter who was at the scene wrote that Garcia had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of the visible signs of smoking terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire if left unprotected.
“And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote.
