City officials hold wildfire preparedness town hall in CD9, urge residents to prepare and sign up for NotifyLA

City fire, police and emergency-management officials on Monday urged Los Angeles residents to prepare for wind-driven wildfires and to sign up for the city's alert system during a public wildfire preparedness town hall at Augustus Hawkins High School in Council District 9.

Officials said the city’s wildfire strategy rests on three steps: familiarize yourself with the Ready, Set, Go program; create defensible space around properties; and harden homes against embers. "There are three basic keys to success," said Captain Eric Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department. "Thoroughly familiarizing yourself with the Ready, Set, Go program ... protect your property ... and protect your house from flying embers."

The town hall brought together Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the Emergency Management Department (EMD) and My Safe LA to explain who does what during a wildfire and how residents should respond. Jennifer Lazo of EMD described NotifyLA and wireless emergency alerts as the city's primary ways to reach people quickly: "If you go to NotifyLA and sign up, you can get alerts specifically for those areas you care about," she said.

Officials emphasized neighbor networks and evacuation readiness. "We need to make sure we know the names of [neighbors], and they know your names," said Sergeant Eric Lee of LAPD, urging households to assemble "go kits" and to move when evacuation orders are issued. Lee added that parked cars on narrow streets can block fire apparatus and hamper response.

David Barrett of My Safe LA described neighborhood-level preparedness and homeowners associations' roles in organizing ongoing prevention and planning. He said simple measures — trimming low vegetation, clearing gutters and creating at least six feet of clearance under tree branches — increase the chance that homes can be defended: "If you do this, you're not likely to lose your home ... If you add defensible space, 75 percent chance that you can reduce the chance," Barrett said, summarizing research-based guidance presented at the event.

EMD explained how the city's Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is used when incidents exceed a single department’s capacity. "When an incident gets beyond the scope of any one department's normal emergency response functions ... the EOC is the brain of the city," Lazo said, describing Level 1–3 activations and coordination with multiple departments.

Speakers directed residents to lafd.org/wildfire, lapdonline.org, emergency.lacity.org and mysafela.org for detailed guidance and urged people to opt in to wireless emergency alerts on their phones. The panel also encouraged planning for people with access and functional needs and for animal evacuations, and it stressed that residents need not wait for a formal order to leave if their home is threatened.

The town hall included practical brush-clearance advice (reduce ground fuels to roughly 3 inches; trim the bottom third of bushes and clear the roofline) and recommended family-level actions such as parking vehicles facing out and keeping fuel tanks at least half full during high-risk weather.

Officials closed by asking residents to contribute to the city's hazard mitigation planning through an online survey at emergency.lacity.org and to use local resources and neighborhood programs to turn preparedness into ongoing practice.