Saturday, September 12, 2026

County’s Second Eaton Fire Review Reports 26 Altadena Recovery Findings; Supervisors to Review It Tuesday

[photo credit: Supervisor Kathryn Barger]

The McChrystal Group study covers the county’s recovery and repopulation work in Altadena from Jan. 7 through March 31, 2025, and carries 25 recommendations. It leaves the fire’s cause, its behavior and the initial suppression effort to other reviews

Los Angeles County on Friday, Sept. 11, released its second independent after-action review of the Eaton and Palisades fires, a McChrystal Group study of recovery and repopulation after the Altadena disaster, with 26 findings and 25 recommendations.

The review covers Jan. 7 through March 31, 2025, and the county says it focuses on short-term recovery and repopulation rather than the fire’s cause and ignition, its behavior or the initial suppression effort. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to discuss the findings and recommendations at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, and the full report, a findings and recommendations document and a set of frequently asked questions are posted at lacounty.gov/aar.

The findings are grouped into six areas, according to the county’s announcement: communications; volunteer and donations management; recovery; repopulation; shelter, housing and people at higher risk; and public health and access and functional needs. The county describes the 25 recommendations as actionable steps to strengthen its systems, plans and readiness for future disasters.

The county has said the second study would examine coordination of services, debris removal, strategic communications, repopulation notification and procedures, and best practices for recovery and repopulation, on a projected nine-month timeline. The Board of Supervisors ordered it on March 18, 2025, approving a motion by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who was board chair at the time and whose district includes Altadena, to hire an outside expert for the work.

“Disaster readiness is rooted in learning from past emergencies and acting on those lessons,” Barger said when the motion passed.

The county gathered resident input for the review through a public survey that ran from March 11 to April 24 and was open to people who evacuated, lost property, used shelters, sought debris removal or recovery services, have access and functional needs, sought information about someone in county custody, were unhoused when the fires began or tried to volunteer or donate. The Eaton Fire burned 14,021 acres and destroyed 9,414 structures in Altadena and surrounding communities, including parts of Pasadena; the Palisades Fire burned 23,448 acres and destroyed 6,837 more. Eighteen of the 19 deaths confirmed in the Eaton Fire occurred west of Lake Avenue, in the part of Altadena that did not receive evacuation orders until after 3 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2025, according to the county’s first after-action review.

The firm’s first review, released Sept. 25, 2025, examined alert notification systems and evacuation policies. It found no “single point of failure” but a series of weaknesses it described as “outdated policies, inconsistent practices and communications vulnerabilities,” the county said; the McChrystal Group interviewed 147 participants and held six community listening sessions to produce it. The county said at the time that the January 2025 fires claimed 31 lives and destroyed 16,251 properties in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, along with parts of Los Angeles, Pasadena, Sierra Madre and Malibu.

“Survivors of the Eaton Fire deserve answers, and today’s report is an important step toward delivering them,” Barger said when the first review was released.

That review drew sharp criticism. Rep. Judy Chu, whose district includes Pasadena and the Eaton Fire area, called it “disturbing, raising more questions than it answers.” The group Altadena for Accountability called on the state attorney general to investigate the county’s response, and survivor Shawna Dawson Beer called the report “PR spin,” NBC Los Angeles reported. When supervisors took up the first review on Sept. 30, 2025, they voted to act on the county’s Office of Emergency Management, which the report said had a staff of 37 and no operating budget, compared with 43 in San Diego County and more than 200 in New York City, LAist reported.

The county’s contract with the McChrystal Group for the first report was about $1.9 million, according to County Counsel, which declined to release draft versions of the report, citing attorney-client and work-product privilege. Separately, a Fire Department-commissioned investigation by Citygate Associates, released May 18, examined evacuation decisions in West Altadena between 9 p.m. Jan. 7 and 6 a.m. Jan. 8, 2025, and concluded that Unified Command acted appropriately amid conditions that grounded aircraft. The county has posted two implementation updates on the first review’s recommendations, dated Dec. 15, 2025 and Aug. 3.

The Sept. 15 Board of Supervisors meeting can be streamed at bos.lacounty.gov.