(NewsNation) — A Pacific Palisades resident says the fire that ravaged his neighborhood could have been far less devastating.
Michel Valentine, a former U.S. attorney for Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke exclusively to NewsNation about watching the fire unfold in Pacific Palisades and what he believes was an inadequate response time.
Valentine, a resident from high up in the Palisades, watched this unfold from his home and began recording last Tuesday morning. His wife was walking their dog and called at 10:29 a.m. last Tuesday after first seeing smoke in the area. Forty-four minutes later, a helicopter first dumped water on the fire.
“An intense plume of smoke that was rising and moving very fast,” Valentine said of the initial scene. “It was black in some areas and white in other areas, but you could see it was moving quickly.”
At 10:34 a.m., Valentine’s video showed smoke billowing in the wind. Within two minutes, the smoke grew before a noticeable change as the plume appeared to have spread twice as large by 10:50 a.m. A chopper flew overhead scouting the fire.
Eight minutes later, notwithstanding the size of the fire seemingly doubling, there was no one fighting the fire. At 11:13 a.m., nearly 45 minutes after the fire was called in, a chopper came into view. Ten minutes later, a helicopter came in and began to dump water. At this point, the fire was already moving quickly down the ridgeline.
Valentine rebukes the rhetoric that no amount of water would have helped the situation in Pacific Palisades.
“I disagree, totally. If there was a prompt response, and if there was a lot of water, [even] adequate water could’ve done it,” he said. “If the fire drops just kept coming consistently, this fire could’ve been confined. Sure, it would’ve continued a bit, but that was all wilderness out there. It wouldn’t have touched any of the homes.
“I’ve seen fires during those 40 years [here], and there’s always been a good response. I don’t know what happened this time.”
Valentine said another fire broke out by Skull Rock a week before the Palisades blaze, and it was handled promptly. Though the deadly fire seems to have erupted in a similar spot on Jan. 7, Valentine maintains the response was anything but swift.
The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to NewsNation that the first 911 call came in at 10:29, corresponding with the time Valentine’s wife called.
The LAFD has yet to respond to NewsNation’s query about when they first started fighting the fire in Pacific Palisades.
No one from the ATF or FBI has reached out to Valentine to speak with him, he told NewsNation.