LA County details firefighting, alert-system fixes, curfew and recovery steps after major wildfires

Los Angeles County officials summarized firefighting progress, technical fixes to an emergency-alert malfunction and early recovery steps at a press briefing, while urging residents to follow evacuation orders and use county resources.

Director of the Office of Emergency Management Kevin McGowan told reporters the county has made an initial determination that an erroneous alert originated from a software error that caused a message intended for a targeted group to be broadcast countywide. “We believe that the problem occurred in the software system that accidentally blasted this alert countywide, rather than to the targeted recipients,” McGowan said, and said the county is changing systems to partner with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to issue coordinated alerts through the state alert-and-warning center.

The malfunction also produced so-called “echo alerts” after cell towers came back online. “The outdated alerts were cached in the system, and as they came back online, started being released to the public,” McGowan said. He added the county is working with FEMA, the FCC, state officials and telecommunications providers to flush outdated messages from towers and reduce the chance of recurrence. McGowan urged residents to sign up for the county’s customizable Alert LA County notifications at alert.lacounty.gov and said the county is enhancing the 211 call network to help people without internet access.

Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney provided incident statistics:…