The Los Angeles Times reports:
Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles Fire Department officials were bracing for the kind of dangerous winds that could drive flames across hillsides and canyons and tear through neighborhoods from Malibu to the Pacific Palisades to the San Fernando Valley.
The National Weather Service had issued red flag warnings of doomsday gusts as fierce as 90 mph. Forecasters described the coming windstorm as a once-every-five-to-10-years calamity.
So the LAFD began to marshal its defenses in the days before the arrival of the winds, taking the type of dramatic measures that the department failed to employ last week in advance of the Palisades fire, which followed wind alerts as bad or worse, due to the lack of recent rain, than those of late November 2011.
With the tempest expected to hit on Dec. 1 that year, LAFD commanders ordered up at least 40 extra fire engines for stations closest to the areas where the fire hazards were greatest, including the Palisades…
