Wave Wire Services
LOS ANGELES — Fire Chief Kristin Crowley defended pre-deployment decisions made by the agency prior to last week’s devastating windstorm that fanned the deadly Palisades Fire, saying resources were pre-positioned at a level beyond what would normally be deployed in a Santa Ana wind event, while also maintaining adequate staffing across the city.
“We deployed resources in very, very calculated ways throughout the city,” Crowley said Jan. 15. “We’re very system and process-oriented, for the right reasons. We follow a system. We did that. We pre-deployed the necessary resources [after the wind forecasts] … not knowing where a fire might break out in the city.”
Her comments followed a report in the Los Angeles Times contending that department officials chose not to assign about 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water-carrying engines for emergency deployment before the Palisades Fire erupted Jan. 7.
Citing interviews and internal department records, The Times reported that officials chose not to order firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift as the winds were building that day, staffing only five of more than 40 engines available for deployment to battle wildfires. Those extra engines and firefighters were called into duty after the fire started raging, according to The Times.
The paper reported that no additional engines had been placed in the Palisades area, but nine engines were pre-positioned in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, while additional engines were moved the morning of Jan. 7 to the northeast Los Angeles area.
Crowley insisted that the department “pre-deployed the resources on top of what we would normally do.”
Once the fire erupted, she said, crews “went to work.”
“We immediately then utilized all available on-duty, special-duty people that aren’t normally in the field,” she said. “They surged. They went and staffed every other available resource at that time.”
She stressed that the department pre-positioned resources with no ability to predict where a fire might break out in the city, and while ensuring that resources remained available to respond to calls across the city during the wind event. Crowley told The Times the department received roughly 3,000 calls the day of the fire — double the normal daily amount — at stations across the city as the wind created havoc across the area.
“The plan that they put together, I stand behind, because we have to manage everybody in the city,” she told The Times.
Former department Battalion Chief Rick Crawford told The Times he believes most of the 40 available engines could have been pre-deployed in fire zones while still maintaining adequate coverage for other parts of the city. He also said keeping firefighters on duty beyond their ending shifts the morning of the fire would have added about 1,000 firefighters in the field to quickly attack the fire.
He acknowledged that commanders are sometimes hesitant to make such a move due to the associated cost of overtime pay.
Speaking to reporters, Crowley took exception to the insinuation that the city put financial concerns over safety concerns in its planning for the windstorm, insisting, “We did everything we could.”
She conceded that “there’s always lessons learned” from every major incident, and she is always thinking of “how we could do better in the future.”
She also pointed to the almost unprecedented nature of the erratic winds that blasted the area Jan. 7.
Fire Department Deputy Chief Richard Fields, who was in charge of the staffing decisions prior to the wind event, told The Times the pre-deployment was “appropriate for immediate response.”
“It’s very easy to Monday-morning quarterback and sit on the couch and tell us what we should have done now that the thing has happened,” he told the paper. “What we did was based on many years of experience and also trying to be responsible for the rest of the city at any given time of that day.”
It was the second time in a week Crowley found herself caught in the storm.
Candid remarks in television interviews about how a reduction in the fire department’s budget and the elimination of civilian positions hurt the city’s response to the wildfires led to an impromptu closed-door meeting with Mayor Karen Bass Jan. 10.
During interviews with CNN and Fox11, Crowley emphasized how she had been sounding the alarm since the “very beginning” about the needs of the Los Angeles Fire Department. She added that such impacts “did absolutely negatively impact” the department’s response.
“The $17 million budget cut and elimination of our civilian positions like our mechanics did, and has, and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair apparatus,” Crowley said on CNN.
“I want to also be clear that I have, over the last three years, been clear that the Fire Department needs help,” Crowley said. “We can no longer sustain where we are. We do not have enough firefighters.”
After being pressed by a Fox11 reporter on whether the city failed the department, Crowley said: “Yes.”
Her remarks led to a late-afternoon closed-door meeting with Bass at City Hall. The two met at a time when they had been scheduled to deliver a public update on the fight against the various fires burning in the area. As a result, only Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell spoke at that briefing.
After the meeting ended, a representative for the mayor’s office told reporters Crowley had not been fired or resigned, and she was still chief.
Bass and the City Council have been criticized for the $17 million reduction for the fire department shown in the City Administrative Office’s adopted budget document.
However, the fire department’s operating budget has grown since the city’s overall $12.8 billion spending plan was adopted on July 1, 2024, according to city documents, and is on track to exceed $950 million, though Crowley has stated the department nonetheless had to scale back some of its duties.
According to a December memo from Crowley, the department’s operating budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year was $819 million, a decrease of about 2% from the $837 million the department received in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
“[LAFD] is facing unprecedented operational challenges due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction in overtime variable staffing hours,” the memo reads. “These budgetary reductions have adversely affected the department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention and community education.”
City officials have insisted their spending ultimately will increase the LAFD’s operating budget this fiscal year.
A spokesperson for City Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who was the chair of the council’s Budget Committee during deliberations over the 2024-25 budget, told the Los Angeles Daily News that the city increased the fire department’s overall budget by approximately $53 million.
He explained that $76 million intended to pay for sworn personnel was placed in a fund separate from the fire department’s regular account when the budget was adopted because contract negotiations with the union representing department employees were still taking place at the time.
The L.A. Times reported Jan. 9 that the “overall fire department overtime, counting all categories, actually increased in this year’s budget by nearly $18 million.”
Matt Szabo, city administrative officer, whose office helps prepare the city budget, told The Times that budget reductions “did not limit the number of firefighters who responded to the Palisades Fire, or how long they worked.”
Bass told reporters at a news conference Jan. 8 there were no reductions that were made that “would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days.”
According to City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office, as part of the reduction in the department’s operating budget, 61 civilian positions were eliminated, of which three were “resolution positions,” meaning they were specific to projects with limited duration or funding.
In November, the City Council and Bass approved a $203 million contract with the union representing the fire department’s sworn personnel.
Members of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles such as firefighters, fire captains, apparatus operators, engineers and helicopter pilots received an annual 3% increase to their base wages, which will total 12% by the 2027-28 fiscal year.
They also received a 5% annual increase to their health benefits.
According to a city report, the agreement cost about $76 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year and is expected to cost $39.4 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year, $45.4 million for the 2026-27 and fiscal year and $42.2 million for the 2027-28 fiscal year.
