Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass (D.) on Tuesday said she traveled to Ghana ahead of the deadly blaze that scorched through her city because fire chief Kristin Crowley didn’t warn her about threats of wildfires. But the National Weather Service warned of "extreme fire weather conditions" two days prior to Bass’s trip—then upgraded the threat the day before she left.
"When I talked about it with the fire chief, what she said is is that we have warnings of Santa Ana winds a lot. But predicting this?" Bass told Fox 11’s Elex Michaelson during the mayor’s first sit-down interview since the wildfires. "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."
"If it had, I wouldn’t have even gone to San Diego, let alone leave the country," she added.
While fire watches are somewhat regular in Southern California, the National Weather Service’s Jan. 2 alert warned that there could be "extreme fire weather conditions" the following week, when Bass would be in Ghana. The next day, that escalated to a "major risk"—the weather service’s second-most severe alert—and warned of "Critical Fire Conditions."
"Any fire starts may grow rapidly in size with extreme fire behavior," the notice, covering "much" of Los Angeles County, read.
Bass left for Ghana on Jan. 4, the day after the alert was upgraded.
The warnings only became more severe. Most of Los Angeles County was put under a "red flag warning" on Jan. 5, indicating the most severe fire risk.
"Fire Weather Watches have been converted to Red Flag Warnings … for areas where there is highest confidence of reaching critical Red Flag thresholds," the National Weather Service reported.
Warnings continued to mount the next day, when they escalated into a "particularly dangerous situation" in Los Angeles. On the evening of Jan. 6, Bass’s office posted its first warning about the weather, sharing already out-of-date information. By the time the fire broke out on Jan. 7, the mayor was enjoying a cocktail party following Ghana’s presidential inauguration.
The wildfires burned through some 40,000 acres and more than 17,000 structures until they were finally contained on Jan. 31.
The interview is the latest example of Bass’s attempts to shift responsibility or cast blame on others for leadership failures ahead of the wildfires, which are already projected to be the costliest disaster in the nation’s history with an estimated $250 billion in damage. It comes as she battles dismal approval numbers and threats of a recall.
Bass has pointed the finger at Crowley before, notably when she returned to the fire-ravaged city from Ghana and refused to answer questions about her involvement in an alleged delay in deploying extra firefighters when the blazes first hit. She deferred 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. Since then, the Los Angeles Times has reported that the fire department could have deployed 10 engines to the Palisades ahead of the fires, potentially mitigating damage.
Bass’s office did not respond to a Washington Free Beacon query on whether Crowley knew the mayor was leaving the country during the fire warnings and denied that she was pressuring Crowley to resign.
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.
Bass isn’t the only one trying to block political criticism. Her longtime supporter and appointed "recovery czar," Steve Soboroff, told elite Hollywood agents that scrutinizing public failures is simply a "bus to no" in a private call last month obtained by the Free Beacon.
"There are only two buses here: one’s to yes, which I’m on, and one is the bus to no," he said. "And the bus to no is looking for the reasons why this happened, looking at the politicians, looking at the reservoir, looking at the science. All that’s ok, it’s just, I can’t spend any time on that."