A longtime Los Angeles Fire Department leader who is currently the head of the agency\u2019s Valley operations will become the department\u2019s new chief, Mayor Karen Bass announced Friday. <\/p>\n
Jaime Moore, currently a deputy chief, will take the reins after a lengthy, nationwide search during which the mayor interviewed fire chiefs of other major cities. Bass also visited firehouses, hearing from firefighters on what they were looking for in a chief.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know this year has tested all of us. But I know Angelenos are resilient and strong. I see it every day on the job and I will lead with the same spirit,\u201d Moore said at a press conference Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes just months before the first anniversary of the deadly Palisades fire, and as Republican Senators launch a probe<\/a> into the city\u2019s handling of the disaster. It also comes weeks after federal authorities revealed that the Jan. 7 Palisades fire was a re-ignition of an earlier fire the department had responded to on New Year\u2019s Day. <\/p>\n Bass said Moore, whom she called \u201cThe Professor\u201d because he has taught in the past, will reform the LAFD and prepare it for emergencies and upcoming major events like the Olympics and World Cup.<\/p>\n \u201cChief Moore is a proven and admired firefighter,\u201d she said. \u201cI know he will work to improve the LAFD for everyone in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n A Los Angeles native, Moore is a 30-year LAFD veteran who grew up speaking Spanish and English, and has said he is proud of his Latino background.<\/p>\n He attended UCLA and got a degree in sociology and earned a master\u2019s in public administration from Cal State Long Beach.<\/p>\n Moore describes himself as a \u201cprogressive\u201d fire service leader in his LAFD bio.<\/p>\n \u201cChief Moore… advocates education, the importance of knowing your job, and promotes empathy towards others and kindness to all,\u201d his bio reads.<\/p>\n Moore has worked as a public information officer and also as the head of the department\u2019s FireStatLA bureau, overseeing performance management at the department. <\/p>\n He also helped create the LAFD\u2019s Equity and Human Resources bureau and has said he is dedicated to improving diversity, equity and inclusion at the fire department. <\/p>\n The decision comes at a pivotal moment for the department as it inches closer to the one year anniversary of the devastating Palisades fire. The department has undergone a series of significant changes since then. <\/p>\n Following the fire, the mayor ousted then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley<\/a>, citing the department head\u2019s lack of communication with the mayor as one reason for her demotion. Since then, the department has been run by Interim Chief Ronnie Villanueva. <\/p>\n Following the release of a 70-page city report on the fire response early this month, Bass announced that from now on, Los Angeles firefighters will remain on duty for an additional shift during red flag weather warnings. The mandatory protocol was instituted after top fire officials failed to pre-deploy engines to Pacific Palisades in advance of the devastating Jan. 7 fire.<\/p>\n The department also faces scrutiny of its union, United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, which had numerous members of its top staff suspended over allegations of improper use of the union\u2019s credit cards<\/a>. The suspended union president announced his plan to sue the mayor<\/a> Thursday over what he called retaliatory actions by the mayor after he criticized her.<\/p>\n \u201cChief Moore has shown strong leadership and a deep commitment to the department,\u201d the union said in a statement. \u201cHis background and experience within the ranks has demonstrated that he\u2019s the right leader at the right time to move the LAFD forward.\u201d<\/p>\n The union said it looked forward to working with Moore on issues such as staffing, saying that the LAFD is the most \u201cunder-resourced\u201d fire department in the country.<\/p>\n While LAFD\u2019s budget went up overall, the fire department also lost certain positions and bureaus this year as the city council tried to balance a $1 billion budget shortfall.<\/p>\n The department\u2019s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bureau was axed<\/a> and so were the department\u2019s Emergency incident technicians<\/a>, who played a key role in coordinating responses to fires. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A longtime Los Angeles Fire Department leader who is currently the head of the agency\u2019s Valley operations will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6246,1996,968,11057,15489,17705,48,52,51,17709,17707,17711,47,50,49,63,4415,17708,17706,2328,17710],"class_list":{"0":"post-23367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-department","9":"tag-diversity","10":"tag-equity","11":"tag-fire-department","12":"tag-inclusion","13":"tag-jaime-moore","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-headlines","16":"tag-la-news","17":"tag-lafd-bio","18":"tag-lafd-veteran","19":"tag-longtime-lafd-leader","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","22":"tag-los-angeles-news","23":"tag-los-angeles-times","24":"tag-mayor","25":"tag-mayor-bass","26":"tag-new-fire-chief","27":"tag-union","28":"tag-year-anniversary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23367","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=23367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}