Los Angeles officials investigate false wireless emergency alerts as fires rage

Kevin McGowan, director of the Office of Emergency Management for Los Angeles County, said false wireless emergency alerts have been sent across the region during active wildfires and that his office is working with federal and state partners to find the cause. “I can't express enough how sorry I am for this experience,” McGowan said. “First of all, I wanna clarify. This is not human driven. There is no 1 sitting at a desk right now initiating emergency alerts.”

The false alerts came amid an ongoing multi-jurisdiction wildfire response. McGowan said specialists from the federal Integrated Public Alert and Warning System and other technical teams are “all hands on deck” to stop the erroneous messages and identify where the breakdown occurred. He urged residents not to disable wireless alerts, saying the tools have saved lives during emergencies and that “not receiving an alert can can be a consequence of life and death.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath echoed frustration with the alerts and urged residents to use official county resources to verify evacuation orders. Horvath said the county will conduct an exhaustive after-action review to determine “what happened, how, and why at every level.” Officials advised residents who receive alerts to check alertLA.org, emergency.lacounty.gov, or call 211 for evacuation maps and guidance; McGowan said the mapping linked from those resources is accurate.

During a later question from reporters, McGowan described the technical chain for an alert: an interface that packages the message and a cloud-based aggregator that connects to cellular providers. He said investigators are examining that sequence and the way cellular towers can cause “bleed over,” in which messages reach devices outside the intended geographic area. He added that stopping the erroneous messages and ensuring the tool can still be used for legitimate warnings are simultaneous priorities.

Officials acknowledged the false alerts undermined public trust. Mayor Bass said city officials are working “around the clock” with first responders and will be present in affected communities during response and recovery. Horvath said telling people to check a website after receiving an alert is insufficient for some residents and that the county will fix the system so “when an alert goes out, it is a legitimate alert that people can listen to.”

The press conference included a commitment to pursue a technical root-cause analysis with state and federal partners; McGowan and county leaders said they will report findings and corrective steps when available.