Bass directed to water down the Palisades fire after-action report, sources said

For almost two months, Mayor Karen Bass has repeatedly denied that she was involved in changing the report after the Palisades fire to minimize the failure of the city and the Los Angeles Fire Department in fighting the catastrophic fire.

But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after receiving the draft early, the mayor told interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liability for the failure. Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions redacted or softened before the report was made public, sources said — and that’s what happened.

The changes in the report, released on October 8, came from a Times investigation published in December.

Sources told The Times that two people close to Bass informed them of the mayor’s behind-the-scenes role in undermining the report. Another source spoke to both people; one spoke to one of them. The sources requested anonymity to speak candidly about the mayor’s private conversations with Villanueva and others. The Times is not naming people close to Bass because that could affect the identification of sources.

One of Bass’ confidants told one of the sources that “the mayor was not telling the truth when he said he had nothing to do with changing the report. The source said that the confidant advised Bass that changing the report was a “bad idea” because it would hurt him politically.

According to the source, the two confidants said Bass held the original draft until changes were made. The source added that both kidnappers said they are willing to testify under oath to confirm their accounts if the matter goes to court.

Both sources said they did not know if Villanueva or anyone else in the LAFD or the mayor’s office made the order according to Bass’ instructions, or if they made the changes after receiving general instructions from him.

“All the changes [The Times] reported by those who Karen wanted,” said the second source, referring specifically to the newspaper’s determination that the report was changed to distract attention from the LAFD’s failure to send personnel to the Palisades before the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and other structures, amid severe weather forecasts.

Bass did not respond this week to a request for comment on this article.

Earlier, the mayor rejected many requests from The Times to discuss the report. In response to written questions, a spokeswoman for Bass’ office said in an email in December: “The report was written and edited by the Fire Department. We did not rewrite, revise every page or review all drafts.”

A spokeswoman for the office, Clara Karger, said the Mayor’s office is only asking that the LAFD review any findings about the impact of the city’s finances and windy predictions about the department’s performance on the fire.

In a brief interview last month, Bass told The Times that he did not consult with the Fire Department about changes to the report, and the agency did not contact him about any changes.

“The thing I told them to do was to tell them to talk to Matt Szabo about the budget and funding, and that was it,” he said, referring to the city manager. “That’s a technical report. I’m not a firefighter.”

Villanueva declined to comment. He made no public statements about the after-action report or any conversations he may have had with Bass about it.

After admitting that the report was altered in places to make it less visible to senior management, Fire Chief Jaime Moore said last month that he had no plans to reveal who did it, adding that he did not see the benefit of doing so.

In an interview last month, Fire Commission President Genethia Hudley Hayes said Villanueva told her in mid-August or later that a draft of the report had been sent to the mayor’s office for “correction.” Hudley Hayes said he didn’t know what the fix was, but he was concerned enough to contact the deputy city attorney about possible changes to the report.

Hudley Hayes, who was appointed by Bass, said that after reviewing the first draft of the report and the final document, he was satisfied that the “findings” had not been changed.

But the changes in the after-action report, intended to clarify mistakes and suggest ways to avoid repeating them after the worst fire in the city’s history, were significant, as some Palisades residents and former LAFD chiefs said amounted to a “cover-up.”

After the fire week of Jan. 7, 2025, the Times revealed the decisions of LAFD officials not to be fully staffed and to pre-deploy all available engines and firefighters to the Palisades or other high-risk areas ahead of dangerous winds. Bass later fired Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, citing a failure to keep firefighters on duty for the second shift.

The first draft of the after-action report said pre-deployment decisions were “not consistent” with policy, while the final version said the number of pre-deployed companies “exceeded the LAFD’s normal deployment matrix.”

The author of the report, Army Chief of Staff Kenneth Cook, refused to approve the final version because of changes that changed his findings and made the report, in his words, “highly ineffective and inconsistent with our established standards.”

Before the report was released, the LAFD established an internal crisis management team and brought in a public relations firm to help organize messages about the fire, though it’s unclear what role each played, if any, in planning the report.

Moore, an LAFD veteran who was appointed chief by Bass in November, said he’s focused on the future and doesn’t mind blaming changes in the report. But he said he would not allow similar editing in future after-action reports.

Asked last month how he would handle the mayor’s request for a similar change, he said: “That’s very easy, I can just say no, we don’t do that.”

The after-action report included a brief reference to the Lachman fire, a small fire in Jan. 1, 2025, which burned again six days later in the Palisades fire.

The Times has learned that the chief of staff ordered firefighters to close their hoses and leave the Lachman fire on the day the fire was supposedly put out, despite workers’ complaints that the ground was still smoldering. The Times reviewed text messages between firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the fire, detailing workers’ concerns, and reported that at least one battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management division knew about them for months.

After the Times report, Bass ordered Moore to conduct an independent investigation into the LAFD’s handling of the Lachman fire.

LAFD officials said Tuesday that most of the 42 recommendations in the after-action report have been implemented, including mandatory manning rules on red flag days and training on airborne fires, tactical operations and evacuations.

Pringle is a former staff writer for The Times.