New questions are being raised about whether the City of Los Angeles and its fire department did enough to prepare in the days ahead of the deadly Palisades Fire. The fire department did not hold over its firefighters who’d worked the day before to increase staffing during the wind event that had been forecast. Elected officials and others in city government were clearly very wary about leveling criticism this soon after what happened last week, while the Palisades Fire is still smoldering and high winds remain a threat. But they agree there are a number of decisions that will need to be scrutinized — among them, why it appears extra engines had not been positioned in the Palisades and why more firefighters hadn’t been ordered to stay on duty. In anticipating the wind event that drove the Palisades and Eaton fires to destroy entire communities, the L.A. Fire Department began moving its equipment to areas where high winds — and brush-covered hills — could put the city in danger. City Councilman John Lee says the north and west San Fernando Valley had extra engines in place: “I spoke to different people within LAFD and received information that we had pre-deployment in our areas. We were just making sure, that area has unfortunately been prone to wildfires in the past.” He chairs the Public Safety Committee, responsible for overseeing and managing the fire and police departments. As to why additional engines or firefighters weren’t in the Palisades that day, he says that will be the subject of the committee’s work in the coming months. “We will have plenty of time after this to assess what went right, what went wrong,” Lee said. “Right now, we’re just focused on, obviously, saving properties, saving lives. And again, as a general public safety, we’re going to bring all that up and make sure that we take a look at all that, different aspects of what happened during this fire.” Earlier Wednesday, LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley said those decisions were part of a balancing act, to prepare for a potential fire without knowing where in the city it would start while also managing the thousands of routine calls that come in. “We study the weather, we pre-deploy, we have a system in place. The dialogue did occur with my command staff in regard to, what else do we need. What else can we do with the limitations of what we’ve got?” Crowley said. She said there were 19 extra engines, five brush engines and two water trucks pre-deployed and pre-positioned before the fire started. But she did not directly answer questions about how many of them were in the Palisades before the fire ignited. “And on top of that, because the winds were so severe, we also pulled in an additional five engines that were redeployed strategically throughout the city because of that potential. Again, we’ll get you the exact locations of where we pre-deployed.” The L.A. Times reported Tuesday that none of those extra engines were in the Palisades before the fire started. Crowley did not address that in the interview on Wednesday. Fire officials we’ve talked with say it’s not clear to them anything would have made a difference in saving homes, given the intensity of the winds and fires last week. More on the Palisades Fire California Wildfires Jan 12 How many‏ fires are burning in LA County? See a map of wildfire locations California Wildfires 11 hours ago Retro blue VW van miraculously survives deadly LA fire: ‘It makes no sense'