LOS ANGELES (AP) — California’s top prosecutor announced a civil rights investigation Thursday into how delayed evacuations impacted a historically Black community ravaged by one of last year’s deadly wildfires near Los Angeles.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said the investigation was spurred by months of conversation with community members and fire survivors concerned about the wildfire’s disparate impact on the west side of Altadena, an unincorporated city in LA County. The Eaton Fire was one of two fires that broke out on January 7, 2025. It killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures.
The overarching question is whether “illegal race, disability, or age-based discrimination in emergency response resulted in a delayed evacuation notification that had a disproportionate impact on west Altadena,” Bonta said.
All but one of the deaths occurred in west Altadena, which received evacuation orders hours after the city’s east side and long after homes were already burning, the Los Angeles Times first reported.
As of midnight, roughly six hours after the fire broke out, none of the neighborhoods west of Altadena’s North Lake Avenue had been issued an evacuation warning, The Associated Press found. The orders grew significantly after 3 a.m. One West Altadena resident told the AP she didn’t receive warnings to leave until hours after she had already packed up and fled.
Bonta said most of the investigation’s attention will be focused on the LA County Fire Department, looking at whether existing systems contributed to the delayed evacuation notices and possible disparities in emergency response. He expects officers to voluntarily comply when sharing information with investigators.
“The families forever changed by the Eaton Fire deserve nothing less than our full commitment,” he said.
The LA County Fire Department did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Altadena for Accountability, a fire survivor group that has campaigned for an investigation into the county’s fire response over the past year, called Bonta’s announcement a “groundbreaking move” in a press release.
“Losing my home and watching my parents lose theirs was devastating. Today I feel heartened knowing that we have a real path to answers and accountability for what went wrong,” fire survivor Gina Clayton-Johnson said in a statement. “This is a great day for all fire survivors today and for the victims of climate change disasters in the future.”
A confusing patchwork of warning systems and delays in people getting critical information has been an issue after other large fires including the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, the 2023 Lahaina Fire in Hawaii and the 2021 Marshall Fire that destroyed more than 1,000 homes outside of Denver. Experts have pointed out inherent flaws in such systems that rely on cell phones and other technology to alert people, particularly elderly residents and those with disabilities.