LAFD chief called in for meeting with mayor after slamming city leadership for mishandling budget amid deadly wildfires: ‘Screaming to be properly funded’
Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley slammed the city’s leadership over its handling of the fire department’s budget as deadly wildfires continue to rip through Southern California ?— and was later summoned to the mayor’s office for a closed-door meeting.
During an interview with Fox News’ affiliate KTTV on Friday, Crowley was asked three consecutive times if LA Mayor Karen Bass failed the department and the thousands of Angelenos whose homes have either been destroyed or damaged since the devastating fires broke out Tuesday.
“Yes,” she responded.
“We are screaming to be properly funded to make sure that our firefighters can do their jobs so that we can serve the community,” Crowley told the outlet.
“Since day one, we’ve identified huge gaps in regard to our service delivery and our ability of our firefighters’ boots on the ground to do their jobs since day one.”
Crowley said the department remains understaffed, underfunded and under-resourced, pressing that budget cuts will ultimately impact service.
“This is no longer sustainable,” she continued.
“So when you talk about sounding the alarm and asking and requesting budgets that are easily justifiable based off of the data, real data shows what the fire department needs to serve this beautiful city and the beautiful community that we swore that we would. That’s what that is about.”
Bass has faced scorching criticism over reports she cut the city’s fire department budget by $17.5 million ahead of this week’s vicious blazes — and that she was thousands of miles away in Africa celebrating Ghana’s presidential inauguration when they broke out.
The 4 p.m. meeting between Crowley and Bass took place Friday afternoon, according to reports, and prompted rumors that the fire chief had been canned.
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The mayor’s office denied that Crowley had been terminated from her job.
“This is false,” Bass’ office said in a statement to ABC7.
The clash came the same day it was revealed that a major reservoir in the area had been drained and closed for repairs when the devastating Palisades fire began this week.?
The 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir was undergoing fixes to its torn cover at the time, according to the Los Angeles Times.?
Crowley spoke out amid fierce criticism of the city’s budget priorities.
The fiscal cut to the fire department was the second-largest in Bass’ 2024-25 fiscal budget, city figures show — as she prioritized funds for the city’s massive homeless population that largely went unspent.
LA budgeted $837 million for the Bravest in fiscal year 2023-24 — which was shockingly 65% of the $1.3 billion slated for the homeless, according to Fox Business.
The resurfaced budget cuts have fueled the flames of critics who have already called for Bass to resign over the city’s response to the wildfires burning across the city.
“None of us on the fire department are politicians,” Crowley told Fox News.
“We took an oath to serve the public before ourselves and even before our families. But we need to be funded appropriately. And that’s where my head is at.”
Fires raging across Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people and put 150,000 people under evacuation orders.
Roughly 10,000 structures were estimated to have been destroyed.
