Two Months Before Deadly Blazes, LA Fire Chief Said She Needed More Firefighters—Then Karen Bass's Admin Scrubbed the Memo

Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley warned city officials in November that her department had about half as many firefighters as it needed. When deadly wildfires struck the city two months later, Mayor Karen Bass's administration pulled Crowley's memo from its website.

Crowley wrote to the city's fire commissioners—a five-person board appointed by Bass—on Nov. 18 and asked them to transmit the message to Bass and the city council. The fire department's size, she said, hadn't increased in decades despite significant population growth.

"In many ways, the current staffing, deployment model, and size of the LAFD have not changed since the 1960s," wrote Crowley, who also complained that a spike in emergency calls and a shortage of fire stations had led to longer response times. In 2022, Crowley said, 61 percent of the department's firefighters failed to meet the 4-minute first response time, a national firefighting standard. The National Fire Protection Association, meanwhile, recommends that cities like Los Angeles employ some 1.51 to 1.81 firefighters per 1,000 residents. But Los Angeles, Crowley wrote, only staffs 0.91 firefighters per 1,000 people.

Two months later, historic wildfires erupted across the Los Angeles area. Since last week, 37,000 acres and more than 12,000 structures have burned, 16 people have died, and more than 150,000 are under evacuation orders.

As the catastrophe unfolded, Crowley's memo disappeared from a city website. The New York Times referenced the memo in a Thursday piece but did not link to it. The memo was available online at this link as recently as Friday. By Saturday night, however, the memo was replaced with a message stating, "404! We are sorry, but the page you requested was not found." A Google search preview includes Crowley's quote on the inadequate "size of the LAFD."

The memo's newfound error message comes as Bass faces criticism for her fire department budget and her decision to travel to Ghana after meteorologists warned of "critical" fire conditions in the days leading up to the blazes. Still, other memos Crowley wrote criticizing the city remain available online, including a Dec. 4 missive in which Crowley says her department "is facing unprecedented operational challenges due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction in Overtime Variable Staffing House (V-Hours)." That memo went viral as the fires broke out; Crowley's Nov. 18 memo did not.

In April, Crowley requested a significant budget increase for this fiscal year, saying she needed to prioritize recruiting firefighters ahead of an expected "surge" in retirements and spend more on wildfire suppression and mitigation. 

Instead, Bass approved a budget that cut department funding by $17 million compared with the year prior. She went on to negotiate a pay raise for city firefighters that added $53 million "in additional salary costs," according to the Los Angeles Times. The additional funds, though, were reportedly placed in a separate account from the department's traditional budget, and City Controller Kenneth Mejia—Los Angeles's chief account officer—said on Saturday that the additional money "HASN'T even been transferred to the LAFD's operating budget as of this date!"

Bass's office did not respond to questions about the deleted memo. Instead, a representative referred the Washington Free Beacon to the Los Angeles Times article on the post-budget pay boosts.

Bass has said she’s confident the budget didn’t hurt the city’s ability to respond to the wildfires. But Freddy Escobar, the president of the local firefighters’ union, said reduced overtime pay meant the department couldn’t fortify its crews early on. He also said the department couldn’t afford as many mechanics to fix broken-down engines and trucks.

"If we had more apparatus and more staffing," he told the New York Times, "it sure would have given us a better chance."

Crowley was appointed department chief by former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, who charged her with developing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the department. She promised to "maximize" those efforts. For this fiscal year, the city earmarked nearly $2 million for DEI staffing, which Crowley said would allow the department to "perform functions that foster a positive and inclusive work environment."

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