Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass (D.) on Friday terminated city fire chief Kristin Crowley, whom she accused earlier this week of failing to warn her about last month's wildfire threats before Bass traveled to Ghana.
In a press release, Bass said, "1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch." At the time the flames erupted on Jan. 7, Bass herself was at a cocktail party in Ghana.
"Bringing new leadership to the fire department is what our city needs," said Bass, who is herself facing dismal approval numbers and threats of a recall.
Bass also said that Crowley refused to conduct an after action report on the fires. Ronnie Villanueva, a recently retired LAFD deputy chief, will run the department while Bass’s office conducts a national search for a permanent replacement.
Crowley’s firing follows weeks of rumors that Bass was set to remove her. On Tuesday, in her first interview about the wildfires since they started, the mayor said she traveled to Ghana because Crowley didn’t warn her about the coming dangerous fire conditions. The National Weather Service of Los Angeles, however, had warned of "extreme fire weather conditions" two days prior to her trip and upgraded the threat the day before she left.
"When I talked about it with the fire chief, what she said is that we have warnings of Santa Ana winds a lot. But predicting this?" Bass told Fox 11. "That level of preparation didn’t happen. So it didn’t reach that level to me to say something terrible can happen and maybe you shouldn’t have gone on the trip."
The fire department itself disputed this assertion, telling the Washington Free Beacon that before the wildfires broke out on Jan. 7, it posted public notifications, conducted multiple media interviews, coordinated with other city departments, and "notified City Officials about the upcoming weather event." The department declined to specify when city officials were notified or if the mayor was among them.
Still, Bass’s office knew of the dangers while the mayor was abroad, posting her own warning on Jan. 7 at nearly 4 a.m. Ghana time. Nonetheless, Bass remained in Ghana until the fires erupted, ultimately burning through some 40,000 acres and more than 17,000 structures until they were finally contained on Jan. 31.
In a Wednesday email to the Free Beacon, the mayor’s office denied that Bass was pressuring Crowley to resign.
Bass has consistently blamed Crowley throughout the wildfire crisis. When she returned to the fire-ravaged city from Ghana, she refused to answer questions about her involvement in an alleged delay in deploying extra firefighters when the blazes first hit, deferring instead to Crowley, who said the department had done all it could in the face of wind and fire warnings, without knowing where the blazes would break out.
The mayor likewise repeatedly deflected blame for her decisions last year to cut the fire department budget by more than $17 million, even though Crowley had warned her its inadequate staffing would hamper wildfire response. Instead, Bass said she was "confident" the cuts hadn’t hurt the response and blamed climate change for the disaster’s magnitude.
"I think we all understand in our city that, due to climate change, we’re going to continue to see very unusual weather events," Bass said, noting that severe winds "not seen in L.A. in at least 14 years" propelled the fires.
A few days later, her office scrubbed a November memo from Crowley that stated Los Angeles had roughly half the number of firefighters necessary for a city of its size, the Free Beacon has reported.
Rick Caruso, a prominent Los Angeles developer who ran against Bass in 2022, called Crowley’s firing "very disappointing" and "more blame passing."
"Chief Crowley served Los Angeles well and spoke honestly about the severe and profoundly ill-conceived budget cuts the Bass administration made to the LAFD," Caruso posted on X. "That courage to speak the truth was brave, and I admire her. Honesty in a high city official should not be a firing offense. The Mayor’s decision to ignore the warnings and leave the city was hers alone. This is a time for city leaders to take responsibility for their actions and their decisions."