It reads a lot like you expect.

An hour after midnight Jan. 1, as a small brush fire blazed across Topanga State Park, a California State Parks employee texted the Los Angeles Fire Department’s heavy equipment supervisor to find out if they were sending in bulldozers.

“Heck no that area is full of endangered plants,” Capt. Richard Diede replied at 9:52 a.m, five hours after LAFD declared the fire contained.

“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area,” he wrote. “I’m so trained.”

Testimony and texts from state environmental scientists show that California State Parks’ initial concern when the fire broke out was whether the fire was on park land and whether firefighting efforts and equipment would harm federally endangered plants and artifacts.

However, it remains unclear whether the state significantly influenced the LAFD from containing and mopping up the fire. LAFD decided early on not to use bulldozers, but has not explained why. LAFD announced it had contained the fire at 4:46 a.m. Jan. 1, less than 20 minutes after the first state parks official arrived at the command post.

“So I imagine they are cutting at least some (astragalus) with those hand crews,” texted Noa Rishe Khalili, a senior environmental scientist, referencing the plant also known as Braunton’s milkvetch. “Probably trying to improve the fire road. It’s badly overgrown just south of the fire. We will hold for now until I hear Heavy Equipment is being deployed.”

In 2020, the city of Los Angeles agreed to pay $1.9 million in fines as part of an agreement with the California Coastal Commission after L.A. Department of Water and Power crews bulldozed hundreds of federally endangered plants in Topanga State Park. The city had been working to replace aging wooden power poles to make the power lines more resistant to strong winds and fire.

But Palisades residents have also sued the state, which owns Topanga State Park, alleging it failed in the week between the two fires to inspect the burn scar after firefighters left and make sure a “dangerous condition” did not exist on its property.