LAFD firefighter testifies he warned that Lachman fire was not fully out when crews were told to pack up

A Los Angeles firefighter in a sworn deposition said that he warned other firefighters and at least one captain about the need for more mop-up on the Lachman fire, but was blown off, days before it reignited and turned into the deadly Palisades fire.

Firefighter Scott Pike made the remarks during testimony last month in a lawsuit filed by victims of the Palisades fire against the city and state.

Pike said he was working an overtime shift on Jan. 2, 2025, and was assigned to pick up hoses from the Lachman fire, but while doing so, he saw about five areas that were still smoking.

“That’s a lot to me,” Pike said. “That’s an indicator that stuff’s still hot.”

He was the only firefighter in the area, he said. He later “exposed” a couple areas and noticed hot coals underneath the ashes that were so hot he didn’t want to use his gloved hand to move them.

“So I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it, and there was, like red hot, like coals that were still smoldering,” he said. “I even heard crackling.

“From my experience, I feel like we’ve been assigned to pick up hose today, but I feel like a better move would be to pivot and go to charge these hose lines and do a more thorough mop-up,” he continued.

Pike initially told other firefighters about what he saw, but “I felt like I kind of got blown off a little bit,” he said.

He then told a captain about the hot spots and ash pits, “an alert to double-check the whole area,” he said. “If a captain can’t pick that up from me saying that and make the right choices, that’s on him. That’s not my job to overstep and tell him what to do. He earned that rank.”

On Jan. 7, high winds reignited the blaze, which was then called the Palisades fire. The fire killed 12 people, destroyed thousands of structures and burned more than 23,000 acres.

In October, federal authorities announced they had arrested 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht on suspicion of maliciously starting the Lachman fire. Rinderknecht faces three federal charges and attorneys in his case recently requested his trial be postponed to June.

After the start of the Palisades fire, LAFD officials initially said that the flames from the Lachman fire were completely out. An after-action review report, which has since been scrutinized for being edited and using watered-down language to lessen criticism of the department, barely mentioned the Lachman fire.

Mayor Karen Bass has since directed newly named Fire Chief Jaime Moore to commission an independent investigation into the department’s handling of the Lachman fire.

In an interview in January, Moore defended the decisions of the incident commanders that day, arguing that conditions at the time did not indicate the fire posed an ongoing threat. He described the eventual eruption of the Palisades fire as an anomaly driven by extreme weather conditions rather than a failure to act.

Alex Robertson, an attorney representing the victims in the lawsuit, said 11 other firefighters were also deposed, with about half of them testifying that while picking up hose line on Jan. 2, the fire was out and they did not see any smoke or smoldering.

“Pike was the only one that told the truth as to what he saw,” Robertson said.

Robertson also pointed to testimony from Battalion Chief Martin Mullen and Capt. Tommy Kitahata, who said a State Parks employee, John Ota, told them that the state was going to patrol the burn scar. Ota testified that he did not return to the scene of the fire after Jan. 1, 2025.

“That goes to our theory against the state of California that they allowed a dangerous condition on public property to remain in Topanga Canyon,” Robertson said.

Pike said he was never interviewed for the department’s after-action report, which he felt was “kind of weird” because he thought they’d want to talk to people who were there.

He said he saw things in the report that didn’t line up with what he saw on Jan. 2.

He also seemed upset during testimony while pointing out that another 76-page report done by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives included only one page about the Lachman fire.

“I haven’t spoken on it because it kind of sits heavy with me, that no one listened to me,” Pike said. “I saw something, I said something and to the best of my ability, I feel like we could have done more.”