Almost two hours before the Eaton fire broke out in the San Gabriel foothills Jan. 7, 2025, Los Angeles County emergency management officials had been pushed to send out an emergency alert to warn residents that increasingly high winds would pose a significant risk. The residents of west Altadena did not receive a targeted emergency alert until 3:30 a.m. the next day, nine hours after the fire started — and almost 12 hours after an emergency management employee urged a prefire alert. It’s not clear what difference a prefire preparedness alert sent to residents before the Eaton fire would have made. Vaquero, an associate director for the Office of Emergency Management, realized the use of a prefire wireless emergency alert would have been relatively novel. The threshold to use an emergency alert was only met once the fire started and began to threaten communities, the OEM statement said.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 24, 2026 14:39 UTC