Imperfect Paradise: Reports about failures in response to the January LA fires and a 2018 fire have striking similarities

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🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

A new report details the Eaton and Palisades fires, including failures in the emergency response. But this report bears striking similarities with another -- which chronicled the response to the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Southern California. LAist science reporter Jacob Margolis discusses the reports and what they mean for L.A. County moving forward.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Join me, Glenn Washington, for one night only of supernatural storytelling.
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0:31.8	Hey, this is in Perfect Paradise. I'm Antonio Serejillo. It's been nine months since the devastating Eaton and
0:38.7	Palisades fires swept through Altadena and the Pacific Palisades. Finally, we're getting
0:44.4	some deep insight into what went wrong. That clarity is coming thanks to an after-action report
0:50.3	released last week. Particularly with elected officials, when they say we couldn't have seen
0:55.1	this coming and this was unimaginable, people need to push back aggressively against that level of
1:00.1	bullshit. Today on Imperfect Paradise, we're speaking with LAS science reporter Jacob Margolis about
1:07.6	that report, which examined alerts and evacuations that authority sent out during
1:12.5	the January fires. Jacob is going to break down that report and what went wrong and also talk
1:18.2	about the alarming similarities he saw in an after-action report released six years ago after the
1:24.1	2018 Woolsey Fire. Jacob, thanks so much for being on Imperfect Paradise.
1:30.1	Thanks for having me.
1:31.3	So, okay, before we get into this report, I think it's important to note that the fire
1:35.2	authorities in Southern California are some of the largest and most well-resourced agencies
1:39.8	around the world. You covered the Eden and Palisades fires back in January and the recovery and
1:45.6	cleanup efforts that have followed. Given everything that you've reported as a journalist who's
	...

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