As Los Angeles County residents continue to struggle with the destructive aftermath of the Eaton and the Palisades fires, the Hughes Fire, which bloomed into being On Wednesday, January 22, was still only 24% contained as of Thursday afternoon, and the red-flag warnings will remain through Friday.
As for the nature of the Hughes fire itself, the Castaic-located firestorm didn’t just ignite, it seemed to explode, quickly burning more than 10,000 acres, which means it is now the third-largest wild fire to menace Southern California.
In the face of the fast moving blaze, officials issued more than 50,000 evacuation orders and warnings, causing more than 31,000 people to be evacuated on Wednesday, while remarkable firefighters and pilots continued to do the dangerous work it takes to begin to contain a Santa-Ana-driven wildfire with plenty of fuel.
Yet, there is one group of residents within the mandatory evacuation area of the Hughes fire, that could not choose to evacuate. These are the residents of the two Los Angeles County jail facilities located in Castaic. The other people potentially endangered by the fire who could not evacuate to safety are the LA County Sheriff’s deputies who are working in the two jails.
In a Facebook post, the LASD, and Sheriff Robert Luna, attempted to reassure family members and others that the residents of Pitchess Detention Center and the nearby North County Correctional Facility were safe.
“If one of your loved ones is incarcerated at Pitchess Detention Center,” the department wrote in a Facebook post that featured a dramatic fire-haunted photo of one of the Castaic facilities. “Don’t worry, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department stands poised and ready to keep them safe from the Hughes Fire,”
(At some point during the fire’s expansion, the department moved the residents of Pitchess Detention Center to the mostly cement North County Correctional Facility, which is also in the evacuation area but is not as vulnerable as Pitchess to traveling embers.)
“The Sheriff’s department has a multitude of vehicles on standby should they be needed for evacuations,” said the LASD in their Thursday Facebook post. “We are working closely with Los Angeles County Fire to ensure the employees, and incarcerated population on the property remain safe.”
About that “multitude of vehicles.” Knowledgeable justice advocates, along with several sources inside the department, told us that there has been a shortage of buses for quite some time, and the bus issue still isn’t resolved.
“The problem,” said one LASD source, “is that a lot of the people with institutional knowledge in the department are gone. After Villanueva, they’d had it. And Luna didn’t do anything to keep them. So when problems like this come up, they aren’t getting solved”
Matters aren’t helped that Sheriff Luna has never worked custody, according to LASD sources.
There is reportedly talk at the LASD, that if the fire gets close enough that it becomes necessary to evacuate the men presently housed in the Castaic facilities—a large of cohort of whom have mental health issues—that Sheriff Luna is considering transporting them to Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF), the county’s women’s jail located in Lynwood, CA.
Whether stashing hundreds of men in the women’s facility is legal, is not yet clear.
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This story is part of a continuing series: Facing the Inferno 2025, so watch for additional chapters.
Celeste-
I guess at this point we poll the audience as to how they’d like us to handle the situation. LASD’s budget has been cut significantly, and the lingering effects of COVID paired with transitioning to a whole new platform of inmate transport had a significant impact on the department.
Now let me be clear, I can hardly trust the current sheriff any more than I can throw him, but Villanueva wasn’t a sheer genius either. AV strolled in after duping voters with his slide of hand and eliminated hundreds of years of institutional knowledge by forcing the current executive staff out almost overnight. While he rose to the rank of lieutenant in his first tenure, his “iron first” approach when dealing with the radically progressive left in LA County got old, real fast.
Maybe with the extreme failure of both state and local governments after these tragedies; people will get their heads out of the clouds and focus on real problems… problems that will impact their livelihood. We as a city/county/state need to realize the network of first responder services are grossly underfunded, and no longer appeal to those who might’ve answered the call otherwise.
The current Board of Supes wanted to control the county pension coffers…. which would’ve been disastrous, but they did something equally as neglectful with pension reform. This has had a significant impact on recruitment for young recruits who should be filling academy classes. Instead we’re watching current executives pondering to an outsider (Luna) who indeed is clueless on how to run our facilities… but then again, the same could be said for other execs. They all are too busy for photo ops with the media and rubbing elbows with their next employers after they get done robbing the county with their own pensions.
There are bigger problems within LASD… the department is well aware of them. But you know what LASD is really good at??? Hiding skeletons. Instead, you focus on mistakes made by those who fund LASD and expect tan and green to turn water into wine.
Residents of South Facility? That is some hilarious liberal speak. They are convicts and inmates. These inmates and convicts chose to break the law and harm other people with their actions. Their living conditions were made by their life decisions. The Sheriff’s Department has a duty to keep them safe and it was done. Not a big deal.
IDK, looks like the Sheriffs dept made the right decision. Celeste’s idea of panicking and running for the hills with a bunch of violent criminals and lunatics during an “exploding inferno” doesn’t sound prudent to me. Since it all worked out, shouldn’t we give the sheriffs department the benefit of the doubt?
Unless you have an agenda, in that case you use anonymous middle managers with an ax to grind to go after your political enemies. I hope this silly nonsense if finally going out of fashion.