Deputies severely burned in fire inside mobile shooting range

Fire crews try to suppress a fire inside a trailer at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

Oct. 10, 2023 Updated 6:39 PM PT

Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies suffered third-degree burns Tuesday morning after a fire broke out in a tractor-trailer used as a mobile shooting range in Castaic, authorities said.

The blaze started around 9:30 a.m. in the trailer next to the men’s jail at Pitchess Detention Center. The facility is used for law enforcement training but is not related to the jail, Sheriff’s Department Communications Manager Nicole Nishida said.

Two deputies were inside the 53-foot trailer when the fire broke out, sheriff’s officials said. One was taking a department-mandated recertification test, and the other — the range master — was supervising.

Both were initially taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, where they were listed in critical but stable condition. They were later taken to Los Angeles General Medical Center “for further medical treatment,” according to sheriff’s officials.

Other firing ranges across Los Angeles County were closed Tuesday as authorities worked to determine how the fire started. Part of the investigation will include interviewing the deputies, but officials said their medical care was the top priority.

“It is extremely early in the investigation to determine the cause of this fire,” Sheriff Robert Luna said during an afternoon news conference. “We need to know why this happened and get to the bottom of it so we prevent it from happening again.”

This is not the first time a Sheriff’s Department mobile shooting range has caught fire. According to local media reports, firefighters put out a flaming trailer in Marina del Rey in 2019. No injuries were reported at the time, and a department official on Tuesday did not respond to a request for more information about what caused that blaze.

The department’s arson explosives team will investigate Tuesday’s fire, Luna said, but only after it’s clear that the ammunition inside the mobile range has cooled.

The blaze continued to burn hours after the fire broke out as crews with the Los Angeles County Fire Department continued to douse the flames inside. Firefighters were able to stop the blaze from spreading to a nearby building and trailer, Deputy Fire Chief Thomas Ewell said.

Sheriff’s officials said the two deputies were the only people in the trailer when the fire began. Although both were critically burned, they are expected to survive, officials said.

Medical personnel at the hospital did not disclose any details about the deputies’ conditions because of privacy laws, but said their injuries were consistent with a fire.

Luna declined to identify the pair, noting that sheriff’s personnel are still contacting family members, but said both are veteran members of the department. One has served Los Angeles County for 21 years and works at the jail; the other is assigned to the Sylmar courthouse and has been with the department for 17 years, Luna said.

Thomas Ferguson, vice president of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said the union was “saddened to learn that one or more of our members have been seriously injured in a mobile range training accident” and that the organization was working to support those who had been injured and their families.

“At this point, there is only preliminary information, and the focus is on providing medical care to the injured and safeguarding the accident location,” Ferguson continued. “In all situations where a department member or member of the public is injured or killed in law enforcement operations or training, ALADS will insist on a full investigation. The department has stopped all mobile range training. Our hearts and thoughts are with the victims.”

Luna could not answer whether initial reports about an explosion were accurate and said those details would be part of the probe into the fire. Investigators are examining the trailer’s air ventilation system and whether it was off, something that may have led to a lack of circulating air and caused the blaze to ignite.

“Honestly, we still do not know at this time everything that happened. Our arson investigators will be investigating everything from A to Z, and we’ll figure it out,” Luna said. “At the end of the day, we have two deputies that have significant injuries. We do not want this to happen again.”

Emanuel Kapelsohn, a firearms and use-of-force expert who runs the Peregrine Corp. consulting firm, said mobile ranges are commonly used by law enforcement agencies across the country.

“There are many types of trailer ranges,” he said. “Some are used just for simulations with electronic systems where you fire laser beams or other projectiles. Some are used for regular ammunition.”

The latter requires good ventilation, he added.

Unlike traditional shooting ranges, Kapelsohn said that mobile ranges have the advantage of offering flexibility in training locations because the trailers can easily be moved. They also offer the ability to fire weapons in a variety of lighting conditions, allowing law enforcement to practice dim-light firing during the daytime.

Tuesday’s blaze comes weeks after The Times published an investigation into fire safety at another of the county’s facilities, the decrepit downtown lockup known as Men’s Central Jail.

For decades, The Times learned, men detained there have used batteries and razors to spark fires to heat food, boil water, smoke drugs or stay warm.

Though the aging facility was built to code in 1963, that code did not require smoke detectors or sprinklers in inmate housing areas. Without automatic alarms, it’s up to jailers to spot fires and manually activate an alarm inside one of the deputy booths.

“All of our jails adhere to both fire marshal and Board of State and Community Corrections regulations and guidelines related to fire safety,” Assistant Sheriff Sergio Aloma said last month. “We do, however, continue to assess best practices related to facility safety and remain open to new emerging technologies that can make our facilities safer.”

For the record:

6:42 p.m. Oct. 10, 2023An earlier version of this report said Assistant Sheriff Sergio Aloma spoke this month about fire safety in jails. He spoke last month.

It was not immediately clear what fire safety measures were in place at the range trailers where Tuesday’s blaze occurred.