January 18, 2025

LA County Sheriff Robert Luna and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell discuss the challenges of policing amid record-breaking wildfires 

PERF members, 

As you all know, for almost two weeks severe wildfires have ravaged the Los Angeles area. While the initial cause remains unknown, extreme winds have spread some of the most devastating wildfires in California’s history. This Wednesday I spoke with Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell about their agencies’ response to the ongoing blaze and their efforts to ensure officer wellness.


Chuck Wexler: Sheriff Luna, what is your role in a situation like this? And have you seen something like this before in your career?

Sheriff Robert Luna: As sheriff, this is the third or fourth fire that we've had, but none have been this bad. Typically, when you get a fire, the first thing you think about is what is our role? The fire department has to go fight it. We're part of their unified command. Our responsibilities are usually traffic control, ingress and egress, evacuations, and other humanitarian efforts. 

But the extent of the evacuations under this fire were enormous. There are members of my command staff who've been in this department for almost 40 years; all of them were saying that they have never seen this level of fire.

Basically, what you're dealing with is a hurricane, but with no water. The hurricane is fire. And it's moving quickly, and it's destroying everything in its path, house after house, block after block. And our deputies are running around and rescuing people. The fire department isn’t there with water because they are so over-extended. So, we're getting people out of multiple fires that are 55 to 60 miles apart.

The location of the wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Source: Cal Fire

Wexler: Can you explain what's going on in California as to why the fires are spreading the way they are?

Chief Jim McDonnell: We don't know the origin of the fires yet. We’ve been working closely together to try and get at that in the initial stages. Once this thing started to spread, we put out a request for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to come in and do an analysis. They did that and ended up bringing in their national response team, which was a great benefit. Now we have a task force that's working together to address these issues. I feel we have the best possible investigators involved in this, and they're moving forward to determine not only what caused the Palisades fire, but also all the other fires that happened at the same time. 

When we go back to the beginning, the winds that drove these fires were unprecedented. We have wildfires on a regular basis, but this time we had winds clocked up to 100 miles per hour that were driving flames from one place to another. You can't get ahead of that. You just have to be in a position to protect your people as best you can, until the wind dies down a bit. And then you try to get to it on the ground because you can't fly aircraft in those kinds of winds. 

We were fortunate. We had access to all sorts of air assets. Once the wind died down, they came in and hit it hard strategically for 24 hours a day. That had a big impact on trying to get some containment. 

Wexler: From a staffing standpoint, what kind of impact has this had on both of you and your officers?

Sheriff Luna: A big portion of our department is on 12-hour shifts with no days off. We're trying to relieve some of them. For example, I have about 1,300 deputies out there today. That's a lot of resources. And then we still have to take care of normal business throughout the county of Los Angeles.

We're going to have some issues as people try to get back into the evacuated areas. Right now we have a search-and-rescue mission with our partners looking for remains. We can't let people back in yet. According to our public works partners, there are so many hazards that you can't see, so that's going to keep people from returning to those areas for weeks. I say this because we have to sustain our staffing in these disaster areas for weeks, if not months. It is going to be a while before we get back to normal.

Sheriff Luna speaks at a joint press conference on the threat of looting during the wildfire evacuations. Source: Instagram

Chief McDonnell: We're going to have to continue at heavy staffing levels at the fire sites in order to protect from looting because that has been a very big reality for us. We've made arrests for looting, for burglary, for a number of different things. [Criminals are] there to take advantage of people during their worst time, so we're going to stay vigilant on that. After the fires die, we'll still be here for an extended period of time. 

While this is all going on, we're in preparation for events related to the presidential inauguration, because we don't know what the potential fallout for that is going to look like. We’re rolling from one incident into another, and it certainly is a tax on our employees as far as the fatigue factor. 

I talked to our people yesterday who have lost homes or had their homes so badly damaged that they are uninhabitable. The spirit from all of these people is one of resilience. We're going to rebuild. We're going to move forward. There’s been an outpouring of support from the community, from foundations, to help in the support effort. During the worst of times, we see some of the best in people coming forward as well. 

Chief McDonnell speaks with members of the LAPD. Source: Instagram

Wexler: People are trying to understand the scale of the area affected by the wildfires. How big an area are we talking about?

Chief McDonnell: When you combine the acreage of the burned areas, it comes out to about 60 square miles. And so, if you compare that to a major city, Boston is around 48 square miles. It’s a very significant area that’s been engulfed by flame. 

A comparison of the largest Los Angeles wildfires and the city of Boston. Source: PERF/Cal Fire

Wexler: Robert Luna, you're the sheriff. Jim McDonnell is the police chief. You two have worked together, whether it was in the Long Beach Police Department or the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. You have a long history. How do you two work together? 

Sheriff Luna: We work together very well, because we have years of understanding each other and how we work. We're communicating, and our command staff know that we're communicating. 

I think we did an amazing job of not trying to get ahead of each other. In the middle of a crisis and so much destruction, people have to have confidence in their government officials. And if Jim is saying one thing and I'm saying another, people are going to think we aren't on the same page. That has not happened here because of the relationship that I have with Jim McDonnell.

Chief McDonnell: The network is so critical — whether it's local or across the country. During an emergency, you want the ability to not have to meet new people, not have to try and figure out what their priorities are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, their culture. 

We're blessed that we have had that overlap. We have a great relationship where we talk all the time. If I need something, there’s not a bunch of red tape to get something done. It's a direct phone call, and we work it out amongst ourselves. 

The relationship between our departments is great, but also with our fire partners. I think there are a lot of places where they don't enjoy that kind of relationship. We are blessed and cursed here in Southern California. We have wildfires, mudslides, unrest. We have all of the things that bring us together too frequently. But because of that, we have these relationships that have been developed over many years, and there's a level of trust. Everybody truly wants to see the other one be successful, and it is viewed as one big team rather than a bunch of silos. I feel we're very lucky here in Southern California in that regard.

Sheriff Luna: And it's not just the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD. Because other cities are impacted around us. We're having to coordinate with their police chiefs and fire chiefs as well. I'm getting calls from the California Highway Patrol commissioner asking what we need. We had to activate the National Guard. So, we have a lot of people out here working together and rowing the boat in the same direction.

The aftermath of the deadly fires in Los Angeles County. Source: Instagram

Wexler: Final question: There's been a lot of talk about climate change. Last year we had the hottest summer on record. Is this something that police departments are going to start having to think about?

Chief McDonnell: Neither of us pretend to be climate experts. We watch what happens like everybody else. But I think that whatever the case is, we have to be very flexible and be able to adapt to whatever situation comes our way. Things change so fast in today's environment — some of it spurred by technology, some of it by Mother Nature. We all have to be sure to dust off the plans on a regular basis, see what needs to be updated, and then follow those plans as best we can. 

Be flexible but also have a foundation from which you're working so that you can ultimately look back and say, “We did the right things. We had plans in place. We had a checklist. We had the right resources that we rolled out.” Because when things are burning, it's hard to be creative and think of new ways to do something.

Sheriff Luna: I'm no climate expert, but if you look at the history of fires here in L.A. County, I don't know how many of those occurred in the month of January, because usually January is one of our wettest months here in Southern California. So, when I'm listening to the fire and weather people and they're describing the low humidity levels, the wind, and the lack of rain — is that climate change? I'm not an expert. I'm suspicious, because people are saying that we're experiencing things that we haven't seen before. 

Also keep this in mind, everybody is warning Jim and I that we should start seeing rain here in the next week or so. And in every area that burned, there will be significant mudslides. So, stay tuned, because fires today, landslides, mudslides, rockslides tomorrow.


 

Thanks to Sheriff Luna and Chief McDonnell for taking a moment to speak with me during such a hectic time. Our thoughts here at PERF are with the brave individuals still working to contain the wildfires and all those affected by the damage.

Best, 

Chuck