A whistleblower complaint filed with Los Angeles County alleges that an employee with "a long history of sleeping on the job" was in charge of emergency workers sending evacuation alerts during the most critical hours of the Eaton Fire — a disaster that killed 19 people and devastated the Altadena community in January 2025.

According to LAist, the complaint was filed in October 2025 by Nick Vaquero, an associate director in the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) since 2023. The county's Chief Executive Office confirmed it received the complaint.

Steve Lieberman, a nearly 40-year county employee, supervised OEM's overnight shift from the evening of January 7 through the morning of January 8, 2025 — hours during which the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena. Vaquero alleges he personally witnessed Lieberman asleep at work more than a dozen times in the two years leading up to that critical shift.

"There is an entrenched pattern of mismanagement within the Office of Emergency Management," Vaquero wrote in his complaint. He added that the agency's "ability to perform its emergency management mission and safeguard county residents" had been "materially degraded."

By the time Lieberman's overnight shift began, the Palisades Fire had already devastated entire neighborhoods, and the Eaton Fire was spreading rapidly through unincorporated county territory. The National Weather Service had issued a "particularly dangerous situation" warning — a designation reserved for only the most severe fire weather conditions.

Evacuation warnings and orders were sent to parts of Altadena east of Lake Avenue between 7:55 and 9 p.m. But the first evacuation order for West Altadena — where 18 of the 19 fire deaths ultimately occurred — did not go out until 3:25 a.m. on January 8. An evacuation warning, which would have given residents earlier time to prepare and leave, was never sent.

According to a timeline produced by the Fire Safety Research Institute at the California governor's request, radio and 911 dispatch calls around 11 p.m. indicated the fire was spreading westward, and multiple reports of flames west of Lake Avenue came in just before midnight.

When Vaquero rushed back to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) before dawn on Wednesday January 8, he said Lieberman greeted him with a startling remark.

"And the first thing he says is, 'I don't know why we're activated. Nothing's even happening,'" Vaquero recalled to LAist. "So I went off. ... I was just absolutely pissed."

Vaquero said night shift staffers told him Lieberman "was sleeping in his office" during the shift. A separate person present at the EOC that morning also told LAist they witnessed Lieberman asleep in his office before his shift ended.

Lieberman, who retired in March 2025, denied being asleep during the emergency. He told LAist he had no specific recollections from that night but called Vaquero's allegations "bogus."

"I'm not going to say that never happened in 38 years," Lieberman said, referring to the possibility of falling asleep at work. "I'm 63 years old. I've got some health issues. We worked a lot of overtime."

He added: "It's the reality of being human. When you're sitting in a chair, I might close my eyes, doesn't mean I'm asleep."

Kevin McGowan, OEM's director, said in a written statement: "It is unacceptable for anyone in the midst of an emergency response to fall asleep, and during the night in question, both I and my deputy only saw Steve [Lieberman] fully awake and doing his job."

The county also noted that McGowan and his deputy, Leslie Luke, were at the EOC "at various times" during the night, and said there was no evidence that Lieberman's performance "impacted the execution of alert and warning." County officials added that the EOC director is not typically directly involved in sending or approving individual alerts.

The complaint shines a light on deeper problems at OEM. At the time of the fires, the office had just 37 staffers and a budget of about $14.5 million — tasked with managing emergencies across a county of more than 10 million residents.

By comparison, an after-action report from the McChrystal Group noted that New York City, with a population of about 8.5 million, employs about 200 emergency management staffers with a budget of roughly $88 million.

Vaquero said his original staffing plan — which placed better-trained personnel in key roles — was overruled by leadership. He said he was also told a staffer fully trained on the county's new Genasys alert system could not be recalled from a training in Mississippi, even as catastrophic fire weather was forecast.

"Everything that was lining up showed that this was going to be the most catastrophic wind storm that we'd ever had," Vaquero told LAist. "Every person should have been available."

The county said there was no official policy at the time requiring trainings to be canceled based on weather forecasts, and that the staffer had departed before the National Weather Service issued its most severe warning.

Vaquero says he raised concerns about Lieberman's fitness for the night shift directly with OEM leadership before the fires. In his complaint, he wrote that Lieberman "was a known liability" whose on-the-job sleeping "became a running joke in the office," with McGowan himself acknowledging the issue. McGowan denied that any performance concerns "were raised through supervisory channels."

This is not the first time OEM has faced scrutiny. A 2023 internal after-action report on the agency's response to Tropical Storm Hilary flagged "confusing and inconsistent information sharing from management to staff," a lack of formalized processes, and insufficient training on alert systems — many of the same problems that resurfaced during the Eaton Fire.

Since the fires, OEM has reorganized its staff and acknowledged "systemic weaknesses." Los Angeles County supervisors are currently considering a proposal to add 44 positions to the office, nearly doubling its size to about 80 employees as part of a three-year expansion plan.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, said the county has also shifted OEM to report directly to the Chief Executive Office. "Since last year's fires, my priority has been strengthening our emergency management system so it is better equipped to respond to increasingly complex disasters," Barger said.

However, as the Washington Post has reported, nearly a third of OEM's budget has historically come from federal grants — a funding source that is shrinking under the President Trump administration. The county is largely looking to local funding to carry out the McChrystal Group's expansion recommendations.

LA County has also launched a public survey as part of an independent after-action review, seeking input from residents who were evacuated, experienced property damage, or were otherwise affected by the 2025 fires. The survey is open through Thursday (April 24).

Vaquero, who lives with his family near wildfire-prone wilderness in Santa Clarita, said he felt compelled to come forward despite the personal risk.

"We could easily be Altadena next," he said. "My kids, I always teach them the most important thing is to have integrity, to be kind and to do the right thing. And if I'm not going to live by that example, then I'm just a hypocrite."

State and local investigations into the delayed evacuation alerts for West Altadena remain ongoing.

Bill Handel