{"id":176519,"date":"2026-02-13T13:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/176519\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T13:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:14:08","slug":"l-a-mayor-karen-bass-directed-palisades-fire-damage-control-email-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/176519\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Mayor Karen Bass directed Palisades fire damage control, email shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A day after federal prosecutors announced that the catastrophic Palisades fire was caused by the rekindling<\/a> of a smaller arson fire days earlier, Los Angeles city officials were in damage control mode.<\/p>\n

The ultimate authority on how to handle the deluge of media inquiries was Mayor Karen Bass, according to an internal email reviewed by The Times. <\/p>\n

The carefully coordinated approach led by Bass also involved the release of the highly anticipated Palisades fire after-action report, hours after the prosecutors\u2019 announcement and as the Los Angeles Fire Department was facing criticism for not putting out the earlier blaze. <\/p>\n

\u201cAny additional interviews with the Fire Chief would likely depend on the Mayor\u2019s guidance,\u201d LAFD spokesperson Capt. Erik Scott wrote in an Oct. 9 email to a Bass aide, then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva and others. \u201cRegarding a press conference, I would be cautious as it could invite a high volume of challenging questions, and this would also be contingent on the Mayor\u2019s direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The behind-the-scenes perspective into the city\u2019s media strategy comes as Bass has denied a story published in The Times<\/a> last week in which unnamed sources said she directed changes to the after-action report over concerns about legal liabilities. Revisions that downplayed failures by the city and the LAFD in handling the disaster were first revealed in a Times investigation<\/a> published in December.<\/p>\n

In one instance, LAFD officials removed language from the \u201cfailures\u201d section saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy<\/a> all available crews and engines ahead of a forecast of dangerously high winds \u201cdid not align\u201d with the department\u2019s policy and procedures during red flag days.<\/p>\n

The final report said that the LAFD \u201cbalanced fiscal responsibility with proper preparation for predicted weather.\u201d Elsewhere, it said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire \u201cwent above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.\u201d<\/p>\n

That passage in the \u201cfailures\u201d section, which was renamed \u201cprimary challenges,\u201d was being revised by LAFD officials up until at least two days before the report was released on Oct. 8, according to emails reviewed by The Times. <\/p>\n

\u201cI added Chief Robert\u2019s verbiage to replace CHALLENGES 1 on page 44. I made some other formatting edits,\u201d an LAFD administrative aide wrote in an Oct. 6 email to several people, including an LAFD official named Eric Roberts. Roberts did not respond to an email from The Times requesting comment. <\/p>\n

Yusef Robb, an advisor to the mayor, said Thursday that Bass is customarily involved with the decision-making of city departments. She has criticized the LAFD\u2019s pre-deployment decisions and would have no reason to soften the after-action report\u2019s language on that topic, Robb said. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Animal Services to the Zoo, the Mayor\u2019s Office is in contact with every city department on issues large and small, and so obviously and appropriately the Mayor\u2019s Office engaged with LAFD about the rollout of the report,\u201d Robb said in an email. \u201cWhat did not happen is the illogical and false assertion that the Mayor sought to soften critiques in a report that she herself demanded and on issues of which she has been publicly critical<\/a> for more than a year.\u201d <\/p>\n

Scott said Thursday that he did not \u201chave anything further to add beyond what was already shared.\u201d <\/p>\n

Two sources with knowledge of Bass\u2019 office said that after reviewing an early draft, the mayor told Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liabilities. The sources said Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD\u2019s actions removed or softened before the report was made public. <\/p>\n

The sources told The Times that two people close to Bass informed them of the mayor\u2019s role in watering down the report, which was meant to spell out mistakes and to suggest measures to avoid repeating them. One source spoke to both of the people; the other spoke to one of them. The sources requested anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor\u2019s private conversations with Villanueva and others.<\/p>\n

Bass last week called the Times story \u201ccompletely fabricated.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no cover up on my part,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was absolutely no reason or desire that I would want to water down this report.\u201d <\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI do not have the technical expertise to make any sort of substantive changes to anything.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last summer, LAFD officials formed an internal crisis management team and brought in a public relations firm<\/a> \u2014 paid for by the nonprofit LAFD Foundation \u2014 to help shape its messaging about the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The emails reviewed by The Times show that the firm, the Lede Co., had a role in reviewing and suggesting edits to the after-action report. <\/p>\n

Other internal emails reviewed by The Times show that Bass met with Villanueva about the after-action report in mid-July. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe FC had a meeting with the Mayor this afternoon where she discussed the Palisades internal AAR,\u201d Kairi Brown, Villanueva\u2019s chief of staff, wrote on July 17, referring to the fire chief and the after-action report. \u201cShe asked for him to put together … answers to other questions.\u201d <\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s Oct. 9 email, whose recipients also included at least one member of the LAFD\u2019s crisis management team and the outside public relations consultants, sought guidance on how to manage the \u201cabundance of requests\u201d from news reporters, referencing a shared Google document where all \u201ccurrent inquiries and notes\u201d were compiled.<\/p>\n

He suggested a \u201cthree-prong approach\u201d to contextualizing the topic of \u201choldover\u201d fires. The Palisades fire was a holdover from the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which continued to smolder and burn underground until kicked up by heavy winds on Jan. 7. <\/p>\n

Scott said that the team should outline the LAFD\u2019s efforts to extinguish the Lachman fire, define the \u201choldover phenomenon\u201d and highlight new policies and procedures to prevent it from happening in the future. <\/p>\n

LAFD leaders had already been under intense scrutiny for missteps before the Palisades fire, while commanders had insisted that they did everything they could to put the Lachman fire out. <\/p>\n

Weeks after the Oct. 8 announcement about the Lachman fire by federal prosecutors, The Times reported<\/a> that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area on Jan. 2, even though crews warned that the ground was still smoldering. The LAFD also decided not to use<\/a> thermal imaging technology to detect heat underground.<\/p>\n

The author of the after-action report, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse<\/a> the final version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report, in his words, \u201chighly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with the deletions and changes, the report delivered a harsh critique of the LAFD\u2019s performance during the Palisades fire, pointing to a disorganized response, failures in communication and chiefs who didn\u2019t understand their roles. The report found that top commanders lacked a fundamental knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics, including \u201cbasic suppression techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n

A paperwork error resulted in the use of only a third of the state-funded resources that were available for pre-positioning in high-risk areas, the report said. And when the fire broke out the morning of Jan. 7, the initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27.<\/p>\n

There was confusion among firefighters over which radio channel to use. The report said that three L.A. County engines showed up within the first hour, requesting an assignment and receiving no reply. Four other LAFD engines waited 20 minutes without an assignment.<\/p>\n

As Scott looked to the mayor for guidance on whether Villanueva would participate in more media interviews, he wrote in the Oct. 9 email that on social media, the LAFD should consider highlighting favorable coverage of interviews with the fire chief.<\/p>\n

A day later, the LAFD notified The Times that Villanueva and other top fire officials \u201care not planning any additional interviews regarding the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robb said Thursday that Bass did not restrict Villanueva from doing interviews. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mayor\u2019s Office, as it frequently does with all city departments, made it clear that LAFD needed to make sure the information it provides was accurate and that the personnel providing information were well prepared to provide accurate information,\u201d Robb said. \u201cUltimately, how they did that was up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Times staff writer Paul Pringle and Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day after federal prosecutors announced that the catastrophic Palisades fire was caused by the rekindling of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[12858,1409,19944,84010,57642,16974,48,52,51,8440,47,50,49,4415,2612,80368,23997,1791,84009,13184,84011],"class_list":{"0":"post-176519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-bass","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-email","11":"tag-erik-scott","12":"tag-final-report","13":"tag-fire-chief","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-headlines","16":"tag-la-news","17":"tag-lafd","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","20":"tag-los-angeles-news","21":"tag-mayor","22":"tag-oct","23":"tag-palisades-fire-after-action-report","24":"tag-several-people","25":"tag-times","26":"tag-unnamed-source","27":"tag-villanueva","28":"tag-yusef-robb"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}