Local congressmen to hold public hearing on Station fire
A panel of local House members led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D- Burbank) will examine the battle against last year’s Station fire at a public meeting next month in Pasadena.
Among those scheduled to address the panel are top officials of the U.S. Forest Service and Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Schiff called for a congressional inquiry after The Times reported that the Forest Service misjudged the threat posed by the fire and scaled back its assault at the end of the first day. The next morning, aircraft that the agency’s commander ordered did not reach the blaze until about two hours after the appointed time.
The Station fire became the largest in county history, burning 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest and destroying scores of homes and other structures. Two county firefighters were killed while defending their mountaintop camp.
In a statement Tuesday, Schiff said the goal of the House panel is “to shed additional light on firefighting procedures and techniques, how they were applied during the Station fire, and how they should be revised to improve outcomes in the future.”
The lawmakers had originally planned to hold the session earlier this month but were called back to Washington.
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is also conducting an inquiry into the fire. Separately, a federal inspector general is investigating the Forest Service’s failure to turn over telephone dispatch recordings to an official review team.
The Times had sought the recordings but was told they did not exist.
The Pasadena session is set for 9 a.m. Oct. 12 at the U.S. Court of Appeals building, 125 S. Grand Ave.
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