Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore has taken over the agency’s most scrutinized — and well-paid — job to do it.
Moore, appointed by Mayor Karen Bass in October, will earn $473,600 a year, the City Council decided Tuesday — $18,000 more than her predecessor, Kristin Crowley, made when Bass was fired in February 2025 for her handling of the Palisades fire.
The LAFD and the mayor continue to be under intense scrutiny for their handling of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in January of last year, and the destruction of the LAFD’s post-fire report.
When Crowley started as fire chief in 2022, his annual salary was $367,100.
Shortly after that, the city amended its salary scale to keep department heads in line with inflation, said Matt Szabo, the city’s budget analyst.
Crowley, the first female chief and the first LGBTQ fire chief, received a positive promotion during the year, according to Szabo.
On Monday, Crowley filed a wiretapping lawsuit alleging Bass “planned a revenge campaign” to protect his political future and the paper’s failure during the Palisades fire.
The LAFD did not immediately comment on Moore’s salary, which was proposed by the mayor and the Executive Employee Relations Committee to the City Council before it went to the full council on Tuesday.
“Investing in strong and experienced leadership strengthens public safety for citizens,” said council spokeswoman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who chairs the employee relations committee.
Moore’s salary compares favorably with other city and county public safety leaders.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone made $475,000 in base salary by 2024, according to county data.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell was sworn in for a salary of $450,000 in 2024 – less than the $507,500 the Board of Police Commissioners had originally recommended. McDonnell’s salary as of Tuesday was still about $450,000.
McDonnell’s salary was a big jump over the starting salary of his predecessor, Michel Moore, who earned $350,000 when he took the position in 2018.
The LAFD has approximately 3,200 uniformed firefighters, and the LAPD has approximately 8,700 sworn personnel.
Both McDonnell and the new fire chief make much less than Janisse Quiñones, general manager of the Department of Water and Power, who was sworn in at $750,000 a year. Salaries for DWP executives must remain competitive with those of corporate executives to retain top talent, according to the city’s Office of Public Accountability, which raised Quiñones’ salary.
He made more than Marty Adams, the previous department head, who was earning about $447,000 a year when he left.
Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, has spent his first months as chief dealing with endless questions about the department’s handling of the Palisades fire.
A week after the fire, a Times investigation found that LAFD officials did not fully mobilize and pre-dispatch all available engines and firefighters to the Palisades and other high-risk areas, despite forecasts of dangerously high winds.
Bass cited the failure to keep firefighters on duty on the second shift as one reason he fired Crowley.
The new chief has been torn between thinking about the failure of the department when the fire broke out in Palisades and then went up and down in the media about what we called a campaign to “smear” the firefighters who worked bravely to put out the fire that broke out.
Moore appeared to be referring to a Times report that an army chief ordered workers to pack their hoses and leave the Jan. 1 Lachman, although the firemen complained that the ground was still smoking and the rocks were still hot to the touch. Days later, the Lachman fire dominated the Palisades fire.
Moore also tried to walk a fine line in the LAFD’s after-action report, which was intended to clarify mistakes and suggest steps to avoid repeating them.
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.”
The most important change in the report involves downplaying the mistakes of LAFD officials before deployment.
Moore admitted that the report was made to “soften the language and reduce criticism of the department’s leadership,” and said he would not look at who directed the irrigation. But Moore also said he would not allow similar editing in future after-action reports.
Bass has repeatedly denied that he was involved in any efforts to destroy the report. But two sources with knowledge of Bass’s office said Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions redacted or softened.
Bass called the Times’ reporting “dangerous and irresponsible.”
