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The Palisades Fire that has devastated Los Angeles and killed at least eight people may have reignited from scorch marks left by an earlier inferno that is believed to have been caused by fireworks set off on New Year’s Eve, according to a report.
The remnants of the New Year’s Eve fire likely could’ve been reignited by strong winds — which have made the current blazes difficult to control — even six days after it was put out, the Washington Post reported.
An analysis of satellite images, radio communications, videos as well as interviews by the publication found that the deadly Palisades Fire began in the same area where firefighters had put out the previous fire — and that firefighters were slower to respond to the second blaze, which quickly became one of the most destructive in California’s history.
Frustrated residents told The Washington Post that the response time from first responders when the Palisades Fire first started last Tuesday was much slower than it’d been on New Year’s Eve.
Nearby resident Michael Valentine was home during the start of both fires — and said the firefighting response between the two was like night and day.
The first time around, he said that the response was swift and impressive. The second, though, was slower and hindered by the high winds, he told the outlet.
When he and his wife each called the Los Angeles Fire Department 30 minutes apart last Tuesday to report the possible beginnings of the Palisades Fire, Valentine said that he had to wait because the line was busy.
At the time, LAFD crews were caught up responding to two other situations in other parts of the city and planned to send resources whenever they had a chance, according to WaPo. Meanwhile, a helicopter carrying water that attempted to respond early on couldn’t because of the high winds.
“For the longest time, I didn’t see any police, firefighters, not on the ground or in the air. I was disappointed because the second fire was moving so fast, and there was no one there,” Valentine said.
Valentine estimated that it took about 45 minutes before he saw a helicopter over the fire, and even then, it didn’t have any water. Later Tuesday night, he went around the neighborhood trying to wet down homes in the area. He sustained multiple burns and injured his back after falling off a ladder, he said.
The greater Los Angeles area had been under warnings of intense wind and droughts in the days leading up to the wildfire outbreaks. This combination stood to create the perfect formula for fires to reignite, even campfires that had been cold for days.
“We know that fires rekindle and transition from smoldering to flaming. It’s certainly possible that something from that previous fire, within a week, had rekindled and caused the ignition,” Michael Gollner, a professor of mechanical engineering and fire scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, told the Washington Post.
Satellite imagery obtained by the newspaper taken about 20 minutes after the Palisades Fire began indicates that the origin of the smoke overlapped with the burn scar from the New Year’s Eve fire in the Temescal Ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains.
The New Year’s Eve fire had spread slowly across four acres. There was little wind, but even so it still took a little over four hours to contain.
Darrin Hurrwitz, a hiker who was near the origin of the fire a mere hour before it broke out last Tuesday, had said that he smelled smoke, but that it disappeared as he continued along the trail.
Another resident told a Washington Post reporter that the whole wildfire was “started by idiots” on New Year’s Eve. He said that people light off fireworks late at night to celebrate the New Year when they’re not supposed to every year without fail. He also said that he and his family heard the supposed fireworks and saw the fire shortly after midnight.
“You got to know better. It’s dry. There’s no precipitation,” he told the outlet.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been camping, but when you go camping and put a fire out, that doesn’t mean that it’s not hot below. Then the Santa Anas came on Monday, and that’s what started, that’s what reignited the fire.”
It is still not definitive if the New Year’s Eve blaze sparked the Palisades Fire. Both state and federal investigators have been scouring the origin point of the second fire for any clues to its cause.
