ATF Takes Charge of the Investigations Related to Great Los Angeles Fire
The ATF’s National Response Team also investigated the fire disaster in Maui, were progress in recovery has been slow.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has taken the lead in investigating the causes of multiple wildfires sweeping through the Los Angeles area.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell announced the news at a briefing Saturday morning. He said the ATF will serve as lead agency of a newly formed Los Angeles Regional Wildfire Investigative Task Force – a team of local, state and federal agencies that will “investigate the cause of these fires and to see if there’s any connection between them.”
“They have tremendous resources and expertise and can bring in resources from across the country to do their investigation,” McDonnell said. “So we’re very thankful for them and their resources.”
Firefighters monitor the Palisades Fire as it burns through the area on January 10, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The fires burned for a fifth day Saturday as more evacuations were ordered and the Palisades Fire spread to Brentwood. The Eaton fire was only 15% contained as of Saturday morning and had destroyed more than 7,000 homes, businesses, buildings and cars.
Investigators are considering an array of possible ignition sources.
The exact cause of each fire is still under investigation, but they were fueled by extreme drought conditions, combined with the supersized Santa Ana winds that whipped flames and embers at 100 mph – much faster than usual.
The ATF’s National Response Team (NRT) has investigated numerous wildfires and other fire incidents before the Los Angeles wildfires. A notable recent example is the Hawaii wildfire investigation in August 2023.
Working with the Maui Fire Department (MFD), the agency concluded the fire was caused by the re-energization of broken power lines, which were downed in high winds from a storm. Sparks from these damaged electrical lines ignited unmaintained vegetation near a utility pole on Lahainaluna Road, and the fire spread quickly because of the winds.
ATF personnel assisted MFD with data collection, photo and video analysis, and witness interviews during the weeks following the fires. ATF then consolidated and analyzed that information as the basis for its independent findings and conclusions, as well as its electrical examination, which are appended to MFD’s report.
ATF shared all data and analyses with MFD, with the exception of electrical data, which the utility company provided only to ATF pursuant to a nondisclosure and confidentiality agreement.
Because MFD was not granted access to the electrical data, it relied on ATF’s findings based on those materials.
How has the recovery been going? As of August, one year after the devastating fires, progress appears to be slow.
Crews have cleared about 95% of the 2,200 structures leveled in Lahaina, but only 47 building permits have been approved, according to Maui County. Over 3,900 properties were destroyed by the fires overall, officials said.
Glenn and Lehua I’l lost their home of 23 years. They described the mix of emotions the last year has brought.
“Having so much courage … trying to be focused. We’ve got some good days, some bad days,” Lehua I’l said.
Insurance and a federal loan will help them cover the cost to rebuild, but with a construction shortage, it’s been difficult to even get the blueprints required for a permit. They said they have no idea when they will break ground on their new home.
Another report indicates that only four homes have been rebuilt, with 207 property owners receiving building permits for new houses and 556 building permit applications pending.
If this is the trajectory for the communities of Los Angeles, then recovery is going to be very slow and exceedingly painful.
The good news is that Lahaina’s famous banyan tree is showing signs of regrowth and looks to have survived the fires.
Los Angeles’ green areas may take longer to recover, especially as the fires are still burning.
As the #PalisadesFire continues growing, many devastated families are bracing themselves as they return to the rubble of what was once their homes.
Details and live coverage: https://t.co/jRQlKV9JUm pic.twitter.com/R5Bhot4vfW— KTLA (@KTLA) January 12, 2025
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And Dettelbach will recommend banning semi-automatic rifles as the answer.
He has resigned. The news of that has been seen in the “gun world” but I haven’t seen it in the lame stream media yet.
Smells of “don’t tase me, bro” from BATF, whose entire agency may be on the chopping block this year.
“See? We do important things BESIDES oppressing gun ownership!”
Looking for constitutional justification for the existence of a federal fire investigation bureau, not finding any.
Whether LA’s green areas will green up is a question mark. That’s because in the absence of fresh water LAFD has used sea water. If sea water has been used for the green areas, the higher salinity now on the ground may make it very difficult for the former green areas to become green again.
You can’t use the sea, it will kill the plants unless treated
Loss of vegetation means mudslides and landslides when it rains.
It didn’t need to be this way. But 90% of california fresh rainwater runs off into the ocean, because environmental wacko extremists on the left block construction of new reservoirs to store rainwater.
CA in decline now.
IMO things will never be what they were. Imagine you were a family with kids in school that just got your home and schools burned down. Even if you were lucky enough to be fully insured, you will relocate, not take many years to rebuild in a wasteland run by such incompetents.
Dollars to donuts, they voted the incompetents into office. When they move, will they change their voting patterns? I doubt it.
As I pointed out last week, some of the areas that were absolutely devasted didn’t vote for Bass, Newsom or even Biden/Harris. Pacific Palisades voted for Trump, Caruso and the Dahle (Gubernatorial candidate), some by significant margins no less. For instance, in 2022 Pacific Palisades voted overwhelmingly for Caruso. In this map…
https://www.latimes.com/projects/2022-california-election-neighborhood-vote-los-angeles-mayor/
…the darkest purple (the color that denotes votes for Caruso) neighborhood (precinct 9001306A) happens to be the so-called ‘Alphabet Streets’ section of Palisades. This is the section that was literally burned to the ground. They voted for Caruso 71/28. They also voted for the GOP Senate and Gubernatorial candidates as well. Turnout was also high throughout Palisades at 75% or more in all precincts.
The people in Altadena however are reaping what they’ve sowed. It’s a very left-wing area of the city voting for Bass 75-25.
Watts never recovered after the ’68 riots. These areas are in for the same…. This is Maui V2.0 on turbo. The mayor is already beginning to nudge LA2028.
Detroit never recovered. There is a slide show intersections, before and after.
They also block the refilling of those reservoirs. Just because….
But they did in the absence of fresh water. I don’t blame the LAFD and others firefighters for using sea water because the blame lays elsewhere. I was just pointing out one effect of using sea water.
That might prevent future fires.
Stopping the fire would seem to be the immediate priority. The fire if unchecked will burn down homes filled with plastics, polymer fibers, PVC pipes, metal of various sorts. Then there’s vehicles and contents of average garage; leftover paint, solvents, gasoline powered weed eaters/mowers, maybe some toy drones. How about EV, solar panels and lithium batteries for power storage in both EV and homes?
All that crap gonna go into the air and soil if it burns.
F those plants, they’ll grow back.
No plants will not grow back if the ground, is saturated with salt.
Rain — if LA ever gets any — will leach the salt out of the soil. The same is true of the alkaline ash residue. It’ll just take time.
Plant Brazilian Pepper Trees. They grow real fast. I have tried dumping gallons of water softener salt around them and they do just fine. The seeds they drop are acidic enough to help keep down the undergrowth. [end sarcasm]
Unfortunately, because the retards didn’t do what was necessary to provide fresh water to fight fires with, salt water was the only alternative and even that is a better option than letting the entire city burn to the ground.
Gee IDK….I can have a tough to grow lawn or my house can burn to the foundation. Who gives a flying shit if the seawater takes a few years to leach out of the soil with thousands of homes are burning down?
Read what I said carefully. I just pointed that where sea water was used to douse the fires, it won’t green up any time soon. Of course, LAFD had to use sea water. Its use, though, is consequence of CA’s idiot water policies.
Jeepers, having the ATF investigate gives me almost the same feeling of security as if the FBI, DoJ, or any other arm of the DNC were doing the investigation.
Although it’s marginally better than having the LAPDNC investigate, since they refused to charge a guy caught in the act of lighting a fire with a large blowtorch…
If he were “caught in the act of lighting a fire” they would have charged him. If they say there’s no probable cause to charge him, that means he was not caught doing that, and reports that he was were wrong.
I, too, wonder why ATF should have the chops to investigate arson, let alone statistically inevitable disasters like wildfires. Do they investigate forest fires, too?
Nobody will ever be held accountable.
Collective irresponsibility. It will be declared that everybody was to blame, therefore nobody is responsible. Leftists are granted unlimited social forgiveness for their own failures, irregardless of the horrific nature. Nothing will change. There will be no “course correction”. CA voters will elect new dems with the same failed leftist policies.
Rinse repeat.
This why they want their voters to be stupid, ignorant or both. Lack of voter ID also helps elect the Dems as well.
I have less than zero confidence in the ATF in doing anything outside of denying me my constitutional rights.
Sometimes a disaster is so complete that an investigation isn’t at all necessary. This is one of those times. What’s the ATF going to do? Tell the various one-party administrations that it’s their fault and that the only solution is for them to leave office? Yeah, sure…
The fact that the only reliable source of water is in the ocean gives the phrase “burn it all down and salt the earth where it once stood” a whole new meaning.
The Coastal Commission has been battling Malibu homeowners, particularly those whose homes are on the beach side of PCH, since its inception. No way are they going to issue permits to rebuild there. My bet – they will still be in litigation just to get a permit ten years from now.
I will be pleasantly surprised if they even give permission to remove the rubble within the next ten years.
True ‘dat. In the meantime, the combination of a big south swell and spring tides will probably remove the rubble.
What are the odds the CCC will try to fine them for not getting the requisite permit for letting the swell and tides do the work for them?
Well, the tides are natural, so the Coastal Commission will have to approve of them. Of course, the property owners can be nailed for not securing the flotsam that ends up in the ocean. However, the real danger is that a movement will start to have anything that didn’t wash away declared a national monument.
If the current California government had been in power in 1906, half of San Francisco’s population would still be living under canvas in the parks and the wreck of City Hall would be a shrine to Things As They Were.
Not to be That Guy, but where in the ATF charter or description of duties does it even include “investigate origin of wildfires”? They may be the closest match to arson investigations on the Fed level, but they’re still a wrongly shaped peg for that particular hole. In addition, is it even a Fed job? For example, the FBI is arguably the premier investigator to handle kidnap cases, but they only handle interstate kidnappings. It feels a bit to me like the ATF is trying to grow outside its boundaries, like it’s metastasizing.
OTH, after hearing the governor proclaim California is opening an investigation into what went wrong it seems better that it won’t be governor appointees running the inquiry. That feels like having OJ appointing the investigators in charge of “finding the real killer” of his wife.
At least according to Wikipedia, ATF: “Its responsibilities include the investigation and prevention of federal offenses involving the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms and explosives; acts of arson and bombings; and illegal trafficking and tax evasion of alcohol and tobacco products.”
Ok, so that’s one function that will need to be preserved if Trump abolishes the rest of ATF.
Their arson investigators are actually quite impressive. They have a fire and explosives research center in Huntsville where they train police and prosecutors from across the country and even internationally. I really dislike the ATF’s gun nonsense but the arson stuff is top notch.
So spin them off to a federal arson investigation section, sort of like the NTSB?
Again, it doesn’t matter how damn “good” they are, there is NO constitutional justification for the existence of such an agency.
Metastasizing is the only thing BATFE does well.
Yeah, there’s an E now — remember that? It wasn’t there before 9/11.
Originally, there wasn’t even an F. They were the ATB — the Alcohol Tax Bureau — of the Treasury department.
The “Revenooers.” Tax collectors.
The F was put there by Homer Cummings, FDRs AG, who carefully crafted the NFA law on the basis that regulating firearms would be entirely unconstitutional — all the fedguv would be doing is collecting a constitutional tax. This bandaid was conveniently forgotten as soon as it was practical to do so.
Now they are a full-fledged armored and jackbooted “law enforcement” agency under “Homeland Security”– which is itself a snide finger in the eye of the citizens of a country that lets in every thug, saboteur, and enemy soldier who shows up at its back door, or climbs in through the bathroom window.
Abolish the ATF,
Nah. Lt the Gabbling Nuisance run the “investigation” LA and the stupid state deserve his “skilllllzzz” Let hm make an even bigger ass off his sorry self. Let him dig the hole even ddper than it is now, so deep he will hever fill it in in o=rder to again gain a positin o public “trus”.
Bringing everything to a stop seems to be the goal. It’s hoped that people burned out will go live somewhere else and that’s the end of it.
The sage of Baltimore said it best, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
H. L. Mencken
All that will come from having the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives as the lead agency will be to delay and potentially politicize the entire investigative process. If and when they do eventually complete the investigation and issue a report, most people will likely have moved on to the next natural or man-made calamity. Especially if it develops that one of the Left’s protected demographics are responsible for the fires.
Newsom will blame it on global warming, and ATF will blame it on guns.
I’ll tell you. When I think of good, unbiased and fair investigations I think of the ATF. The self-same bureau whose primary goal is to deprive the people of their god-given and constitutionally protected rights of self defense.
Defund. atf…..
What is the hell is ATF doing anywhere near stuff like this? Did they run out of guns to ban or firearm owners to harass? That agency should be on the priority shut down list.
Their usual reason is grasping after increased regulatory power..
With a bill on the floor actually abolishing them, their reason today is clawing for survival relevance.
Did finding a cigarette butt give the ATF jurisdiction?