LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass on Friday ousted Fire Chief Kristin Crowley amid tensions between the two over the way this year's deadly fires were handled.
Bass said that she had decided to fire Crowley “in the best interests of Los Angeles’ public safety, and for the operations of the Los Angeles Fire Department."
“We know that 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," the mayor said in a statement.
Crowley's removal is effective immediately, the mayor said.
Bass also cited Crowley's failure to do "an after action report on the fires" after being told to do so by the president of the Fire Commission.
"The Chief refused," Bass said. "These require her removal."
The mayor's office subsequently said in a statement Friday that Crowley has opted to remain at the department at a lower rank under civil service rules intended to isolate jobs from political loyalty and reward skills. Civil service-qualified jobs are regulated by L.A.'s mayor-appointed, City Council-approved Civil Service Commission, which can review Crowley's removal.
The office said she will be assigned to duties by the department's new interim chief, Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva, a 41-year department veteran. Bass appointed Villanueva on Friday to take over Crowley's duties.
In a written statement Saturday, Crowley said it has been an honor to represent and lead the department, which she has spent 25 years with.
"As the Fire Chief, I based my actions and decisions on taking care of our firefighters so that they could take care of our communities," she said. "Serving others before self, having the courage and integrity to do what is right, and leading with compassion, love and respect have guided me throughout my career. I am extremely proud of the work, sacrifice and dedication of our LAFD members, both sworn and civilian.”
Meanwhile, Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez of L.A.'s northeastern communities, where the Hurst Fire broke out on Jan. 7, encouraged Crowley on Friday to fight her removal by appealing to the City Council.
"Chief Crowley remains the most qualified member of the LA City Fire Department that earned her well deserved appointment as Fire Chief," she said on Facebook. "I am outraged by the scapegoating revealed by the Mayor's actions. I plan to use my authority as a Councilmember to set the record straight and encourage Chief Crowley to appeal the Mayor's baseless termination to the City Council."
Crowley, a 22-year veteran of the department, was appointed fire chief in 2022. She was the first woman and first LGBTQ chief of the department, which has around 3,750 members.
Her ouster comes after Crowley was asked in an interview with L.A. TV station KTTV last month if the city had failed the LAFD. "Yes," she responded.
Crowley in that interview said that the fire department is underfunded and that if it had been properly funded, the LAFD would have been better prepared for the Palisades Fire.
“I do believe if we would have set ourselves up appropriately over the past three years, we would have been in a better position of what had happened here, in the city where we lost homes and we lost lives,” Crowley said.
Bass has been questioned about $17.8 million in budget reductions for the LAFD, and has denied that it had any impact on firefighting efforts during the wildfires.
“There were no reductions that were made that would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days,” Bass said last month.
Crowley has said that she had to make some “difficult decisions” as far as firefighter duties in nonemergency situations because of the budget. But she has added that the department was working with Bass.
“We made our adjustments. We’re working closely with Mayor Bass. She’s supporting us on this,” Crowley said last month, when the fires first broke out.
For weeks, Bass has faced questions about why she was in Ghana to attend the presidential inauguration of John Mahama when the fires started.
In her one of her first sit-down interviews since the fires, she defended her decision to travel, telling Los Angeles outlet KABC this week that she was not properly warned about them.
“Because, honest and truly, if I had all of the information that I needed to have, the last thing I would have done was to be out of town,” she told KABC.
Her office also issued a statement to the Los Angeles Times this week that more pointedly directed the blame on Crowley.
“Before other major weather emergencies, the mayor — or at minimum, the mayor’s chief of staff — has received a direct call from the fire chief, flagging the severity of the situation," a spokesperson for the mayor's office told The Times. "This time, that call never came."
The National Weather Service office that covers the Los Angeles area began warning of potentially "extreme fire weather conditions" five days before the January fires erupted. The day before the blazes, the weather service was virtually shouting, using capital letters and exclamation points, that a "life-threatening and destructive windstorm" was imminent.
The catastrophic fires, fed by strong Santa Ana winds that had speeds seen in hurricanes, killed at least 29 people.
The Palisades Fire, which tore through the coastal region, destroying neighborhoods, burned more than 23,448 acres, destroyed 6,837 structures and damaged an additional 1,017, according to Cal Fire. It was officially declared fully contained on Jan. 31, more than three weeks after it began.
Another massive blaze, the Eaton Fire, also fed by the winds, burned through the Altadena and Pasadena areas in Los Angeles County. It destroyed 9,418 structures and damaged 1,073, many of them century-old homes in Altadena, before also being declared fully contained on Jan. 31.
Officials have called the fires and hurricane-force winds one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles.
Phil Helsel reported from Los Angeles, Matt Lavietes from New York City and Dennis Romero from San Diego.
