Council reviews LAFD hazmat capabilities after recent large fires; asks for staffing plan

The Los Angeles City Council received and filed a Board of Fire Commissioners report on the Los Angeles Fire Department’s hazardous materials teams and capabilities and asked the department to include a proposed HAZMAT staffing plan and future budget requests to more fully staff response hubs.

The action follows committee review after recent large fires, including the Palisades and industrial fires, which prompted council members to question how hazardous materials (hazmat) move through and beyond burn sites and how the city is tracking and responding to those risks.

Captain Rich Thompson, program manager for the LAFD HAZMAT and Joint Hazard Assessment Team, told the council the department performed on-foot, incident-level assessments after the Palisades fire and that long-term tracking of debris removal and contaminated materials was taken over by federal agencies. “After that, we weren’t really part of the cleanup,” Thompson said. He added that the department does not maintain a standalone public-facing physical map but that data on hazardous materials at regulated facilities is captured in a program he identified as “Sears,” which is maintained by the city’s Certified Unified Program Agency (CUPA) and can be queried for facility-level inventories and permit information.

Thompson described how staffing of hazmat teams has changed since before the 2008 recession. He said the department once had three fully staffed hazmat teams distributed around the city; budget cuts left the department with a single fully staffed team at Fire Station 21, with other teams operating under a “flex” or task-force model that requires personnel to be moved onto hazmat apparatus when an incident arises. “Right now, we only have 1 team that’s meeting [the NFPA standard], and that’s Fire Station 21,” Thompson said, adding that other units can average 15–20 minutes to get on scene under the current model.

Council members raised concerns about geographic risk differences tied to industrial zoning and about the increasing variety of hazardous materials, including lithium-ion battery fires and alternative fuels. Thompson said LAFD has added dispatch algorithms so that a HAZMAT team is attached when incidents escalate (for example, to a greater alarm on commercial structure fires) and described training efforts: the department runs certified courses for HAZMAT technicians and specialists, provides a “first responder operational” course for recruits, offers regional training to outside agencies, and holds internal trainings at least three times a year.

At the meeting, council leadership urged continued advocacy for budgeted positions. A council member stated the department’s prior budget requests for full HAZMAT staffing did not make it into the mayor’s proposed budget and recommended the council “pluck it out in future budget cycles.” The council then moved to receive and file the report and to request the LAFD include a proposed HAZMAT staffing plan and future budget requests in its next submission.

Council roll call on the item recorded affirmative votes from council members present and the matter was approved as the committee recommended. The council’s request asks the fire department to outline staffing required to return to more fully staffed HAZMAT teams and to identify related budget requests.

The department’s presentation and council discussion focused on response capacity, training, and coordination with state and federal cleanup authorities; the council did not adopt new ordinances or statutory changes in this item.

Looking ahead, the council directed staff to include the proposed staffing plan and related budget requests in future submittals so the City can evaluate resource needs against other budget priorities.