Who made the request to leave Lachman fire? In sworn testimony, LAFD officials passed on the money

Early in Michael McIndoe’s career on Jan. 2, 2025, his team received their marching orders: Take the remaining hoses overnight from 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 read the National Weather Service’s forecast for the day – temperatures were expected to warm – and handling any hot spots would be easier with hoses in the area.

While at the station, he said, he relayed his concerns over the phone to Battalion Chief Mario Garcia, who was in charge of the operation.

Garcia “said something like, ‘OK. Let me check it out, and I’ll get back to you,'” McIndoe said last month.

Despite the warning, Garcia’s orders did not change, and McIndoe spent a few hours or more that morning winding the pipelines.

At one point, McIndoe said, he encountered a smoking ash pit. He fetched a backpack with water from his engine, poured a few liters of water on the ground and dug into the dirt with his hand tool until he was satisfied that it had cooled.

Days later, amid strong winds, embers from the Lachman fire ignited the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

McIndoe was one of a dozen Los Angeles firefighters fired in January in a lawsuit filed by Palisades fire victims against the city and state. Texts and videos of the testimony, released Thursday and Friday, support an earlier report by The Times that workers were ordered to collect their hoses despite signs that the Lachman fire was not completely extinguished.

Another firefighter, Scott Pike, stated that he reported to the captain of hot spots and ash areas in the area but he did not receive an order to take care of them.

Garcia testified that no one informed him of concerns about picking up the pipes and believes the decision was made before his shift.

The evidence raises questions about why LAFD officials did not address the concerns they raised about the weather and potential hot spots that could ignite in another fire. Since Pike and McIndoe say they were following instructions from above, and Garcia and the chief of staff from the beginning appear to be passing the buck to others, it is not clear who made the decision to abandon the Lachman fire.

LAFD spokesperson, Stephanie Bishop, refused to answer the question of who decided to pull the pipe, saying that there is an ongoing investigation. He did not answer whether the officials identified the captain Pike spoke to or whether they decided what the captain did about his concerns.

Pike said he does not know the name of the captain but he believes that the captain is from Engine 69.

McIndoe testified that he was the captain of Engine 69 that day. In an email Saturday, McIndoe said he was not authorized to speak to the media but wanted to set the record straight: “I did not speak to, and do not recall seeing, Firefighter Pike the day we took the hose from 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 pipes and brought up their earlier conversation.

“I just went up to him, and I said, ‘Hey, I hope you don’t think I’m trying to get out of a job,'” McIndoe said. “And he said, no, that’s — okay. Something along those lines, and that’s all I really remember.”

He said he is trying to clarify with Garcia that he believes “the pipeline should stay for a while.”

Garcia stated that when he arrived at the burn site, no one expressed concern about the disposal of the pipe, and he did not see the need to leave equipment at the site.

He said he thought the decision to take the pipelines was made before his shift – although he was “not 100 percent sure” – and that it was “a collaborative decision, based on all the information received.”

By the time he got to the burned area, Garcia testified, half of the pipe had been taken. He walked around to make sure there was a line cut around it and that it was cold, and he didn’t see any smoke or signs that the fire wasn’t completely out.

“I met several members,” he said. “Nobody has said anything about there being any kind of concern.”

Trooper Martin Mullen, who was on the job before Garcia, testified that he walked the perimeter four times and left the hose lines overnight as a precaution, keeping two senior aides, Vinny Alvarado and Joseph Everett, in the loop. Mullen said they reported to another chief, Phillip Fligiel.

Pipes can be quickly reconnected “if something happens,” Mullen said.

Mullen testified that he informed Garcia again: “I told him I left the pipes for him overnight, he needs to go through them and make sure nothing is going on there.”

Mullen, who said he is not involved in deciding when to take over the pipelines, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an email on Sunday, Everett said: “I was not present or assigned to that incident. As a result I did not make any order decisions and I have no knowledge of anyone’s 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 set on purpose, burned quickly around midnight on Jan. 1, 2025. A few hours later, at 4:46 am he announced that the LAF was fully contained.

“I think it might take all day to get that hose off the hill,” Fligiel said in a team interview on Jan. 1. “Make sure that program is included.”

At 1:35 pm on Jan. 2, Garcia sent a message to Fligiel and Everett: “All pipes and equipment have been retrieved.”

Earlier that day, Pike made a troubling comment that made him think the whole place needed to be re-investigated. He saw about five places of smoke and ash pits, including one he clearly remembered that was too hot to touch with his gloved hand.

“So I just kicked it with my boot to expose it, and then there was, like red heat, like coal,” he testified. “And I heard crying.”

Pike, a 23-year LAFD veteran based at the station in Sunland, was working overtime at Fire Station 23, the LAFD’s second station in the Palisades, that day. He then relayed what he saw to the captain and two firefighters.

“I approached him like that, like, ‘Hey, Cap … We’ve got hot spots in general. We’ve got ash pits,'” Pike testified about his conversation with the captain. “That’s a warning to reassess the whole area and maybe we need to change our tactics.”

Pike pointed out that it wasn’t his job to “step in and tell him what to do. He got that level.”

He said the captain suggested bringing hand tools or a backpack full of water up the mountain to extinguish any hot spots. Pike went back to taking the pipe while he waited for new orders, which never came.

Pike testified that he heard his colleagues – the captain and two firefighters – blasting him.

“It makes me sad that no one listens to me,” he said.

In his statement, McIndoe did not recall details of other conversations he had that day.

He was asked by the plaintiffs’ lawyer: “Any conversation with anybody else that you didn’t tell me about in relation to any work that was done up there at the Lachman fire station, in terms of checking the smokers? Making sure you got the whole hose? Anything like that?”

McIndoe replied: “I don’t remember specific conversations. I think I may have had a conversation with one or two of the captains who were there before we left.”

McIndoe testified that he told the captain – who he said was from Fire Station 37 – that he thought it would be a good idea to leave the hose outside because the hot weather would first burn the ground and increase the smokers, “and it would be good to have hose lines to talk to those.”

The Times reported in October that crews were ordered to leave the Lachman fire, even though the ground was smoking and the rocks were hot.

In a message reviewed by The Times, a firefighter at the scene wrote that Garcia had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of visible signs of a smoking area, which workers feared could start a new fire if left unprotected.

“And the rest is history,” wrote the firefighter.