{"id":312397,"date":"2026-05-12T19:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312397\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T19:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:30:12","slug":"l-a-quietly-fires-its-first-chief-heat-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312397\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. quietly fires its first chief heat officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marta Segura, the first chief heat officer<\/a> for the city of Los Angeles, was quietly fired from her position last month, The Times has confirmed.<\/p>\n

Segura stepped into the new role in 2022 amid a marked increase in climate-fueled heat events. Her appointment by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti came with much fanfare, as it made L.A. only the third American city to name a chief heat officer, following Phoenix and Miami. Segura also previously served as director of the city\u2019s Climate Emergency Mobilization Office.<\/p>\n

Segura confirmed that the Bass administration let her go last month, as first reported by the Substack Climate Colored Goggles<\/a>. She said no reason was given for the decision, but declined to comment further.<\/p>\n

Officials with the Bass administration said they are in the process of appointing a new person to the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtreme heat is one of Los Angeles\u2019 most dangerous climate hazards, and it will only become more severe without urgent action,\u201d said spokesperson Paige Sterling. <\/p>\n

The new chief heat officer will \u201cadvance Mayor Bass\u2019s Climate Action Plan<\/a>,\u201d Sterling said, which includes developing the city\u2019s heat action and resilience plan, expanding tree canopies and implementing citywide cooling strategies. \u201cWe thank Marta for her service as the City\u2019s inaugural Chief Heat Officer.\u201d <\/p>\n

Some local environmentalists said Segura\u2019s departure brings more upheaval for a city already grappling with worsening climate challenges. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have all the environmental leaders gone in this administration?\u201d asked Mark Gold of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. Other recent departures include Janisse Qui\u00f1ones, who resigned as the head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power<\/a> in March; and Barbara Romero, who stepped down as head of the city\u2019s Bureau of Sanitation<\/a> in October amid rumors that she was pushed out. Both were advocates for clean energy and sustainability goals. <\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Office of Sustainability, which led the implementation of Garcetti\u2019s ambitious Green New Deal<\/a>, was also remodeled early in Bass\u2019s tenure, with many of its responsibilities moved to the Board of Public Works and the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office. Last year, the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office was itself moved from Public Works to the city\u2019s Emergency Management Department. <\/p>\n

But while Bass has reaffirmed and in some areas advanced L.A.\u2019s climate goals \u2014 such as moving toward 100% renewable energy by 2035 \u2014 climate has often been less of a priority than homelessness and public safety. The mayor last year proposed eliminating the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office<\/a> amid a $1 billion budget shortfall, a move that was ultimately rejected by the L.A. City Council. <\/p>\n

With Segura gone, the office\u2019s former staff of six is now down to one employee, deputy heat officer Gordon Haines. <\/p>\n

Even still, some city council members have been able to make progress on heat-related issues independent of the office. Last fall, councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Adrin Nazarian and Bob Blumenfield introduced a motion to set indoor heat standards<\/a> for renters in the city, mirroring an ordinance<\/a> from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. The motion is advancing through the drafting process now.<\/p>\n

In April, Bass released a new Climate Action plan<\/a> for the city which largely replaces the Green New Deal and calls for doubling local solar power by 2030, reducing the use of fossil fuels in building and city buses, and addressing heat risk, among other items. <\/p>\n

Emergency Management Department spokesman Joseph Riser said he was unable to comment on personnel matters, but the chief heat officer position \u201cremains a priority for us as we work to continue to ensure the issues related to climate resilience are addressed across our hazard planning efforts.\u201d <\/p>\n

Segura was appointed to the role as the city faced cascading climate hazards, including severe drought and extreme heat waves. A record-breaking heat wave<\/a> in September 2022 killed hundreds of people statewide and nearly broke the power grid. <\/p>\n

Segura\u2019s appointment also followed a Times investigation into extreme heat\u2019s deadly toll<\/a>, which found that California chronically undercounts heat deaths, and that heat impacts disproportionately affect poorer neighborhoods in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

Bass\u2019s office said the new chief heat officer will be announced this month. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marta Segura, the first chief heat officer for the city of Los Angeles, was quietly fired from her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[130868,1409,44925,130867,20274,130865,2303,48,52,51,7036,47,50,49,63,17708,98145,346,4840,130866,130869],"class_list":["post-312397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bass-administration","tag-city","tag-climate-action-plan","tag-climate-emergency-mobilization-office","tag-extreme-heat","tag-first-chief-heat-officer","tag-l-a","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-year","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mayor-bass","tag-new-role","tag-office","tag-power","tag-segura","tag-sustainability-goal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312397","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=312397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}