Former LA Fire Chief Firing Appeal Getting Messy

When fingers are pointing after a disaster, it is best to have ducks in a row before taking action. Especially if you are as culpable for the disaster’s handling as the high-profile person you decide to fire to take the heat off of yourself, maybe even more so.

That’s what’s happening right now in the battle between the former Fire Chief of Los Angeles, Kristin Crowley, who was fired in the aftermath of the wildfire disasters by the miserably incompetent and absent at-the-catatrophe’s-start gargoyle of a Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass.

You can’t make this stuff up…

Karen Bass was somehow able to warn all of Los Angeles about the impending winds and fire danger, but still finds a way to blame LAFD Chief Crowley for not warning her about impending winds and fire danger. pic.twitter.com/0fcg905XF2

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) February 21, 2025

The same Kristin Crowley who had warned the mayor that her budget cuts were severely impacting her department’s ability to prepare and respond to regular emergencies, less mind something of scale.

a w k w a r dhttps://t.co/YdtaxNEfaP

— Kimberly “Kim” Wexler MA JD (@KimWexlerMAJD) January 9, 2025

Crowley filed a notice of appeal for her termination last Thursday. 

#BREAKING from @KTLA — former @LAFDtalk Chief Kristen Crowley appeals her firing by @MayorOfLA this story is far from over pic.twitter.com/uDRIypBqjl

— Pete Wilgoren (@WILGOREN) February 28, 2025

And she does have a high bar to reach to get it overturned. There are fifteen LA City Council members, and she has to carry ten of them with her. Bass had four standing with her when she made the announcement. Two have publicly come out on Crowley’s behalf.

Could be tough.

Some residents want every last city official gone, and it’s hard to blame them after the unimaginable series of screw-ups from individuals and departments that led to the destruction of so many homes and businesses.

The entire fire department leadership and the mayor and the city council and the LADWP management, and Newsom all need to resign, they need to be indicted for criminal mismanagement and criminal negligence.

Only a fraction of the homes were surrounded by brush. The vast…

— Evariste Paine (@PaineCommonSens) February 28, 2025

…Only a fraction of the homes were surrounded by brush. The vast majority of the fires burned srructure to structure.    

If this is not the epitome of civic management failure, I don’t know what is. I dare anyone to find a worse example of civic management in the last 100 years.  

F**k resignation or recall – we should be talking about CRIMINAL INDICTMENTS for these mfers.

Bloody brutal – people were pissed, especially when the fires were still burning.

Speaker at the first LA City Council meeting blasted Fire Chief Kristin Crowley for failing to prepare for future disasters.

“She’s an appointed lapdog… LAFD needs to be an elected position, otherwise, we’re just going to have more of the same.”pic.twitter.com/cFJp5J1N8u

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 17, 2025

For all the legit questions about how big a part DEI and woke policies played flying in the aftermath of the fires that wiped out Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Eaton, and other neighborhoods, Crowley has strong support from the fire department and, surprisingly, from some residents, too.

When the city tried to schedule the appeal vote on a Friday night, the uproar was so huge that they were forced to reschedule it for when more residents and firefighters could attend.

 Following public backlash over a last-minute hearing, the Los Angeles City Council has rescheduled fired Fire Chief Kristin Crowley’s appeal to Tuesday.

Crowley, who was dismissed by Mayor Karen Bass last week, is seeking to overturn the decision, which Bass said was based on failures in leadership ahead of the January windstorm that led to the deadly Palisades Fire and Crowley’s alleged refusal to prepare an after-action report.

The City Council originally scheduled Crowley’s appeal hearing for Friday at 5 p.m. in Van Nuys, prompting criticism from community members and firefighter representatives who called the timing an attempt to bury the issue when few could attend. The meeting has now been moved to Tuesday, giving the public more opportunity to weigh in.

The United Firefighters of Los Angeles City (UFLAC), the union representing LAFD firefighters, had harsh words for the decision to hold a Friday evening hearing on short notice.

“It is outrageous that the City Council has scheduled, on just 24-hour notice, a ‘Special Meeting’ for Friday at 5:00 p.m. in the Valley to hear Chief Crowley’s appeal of her dismissal,” UFLAC said in a statement.

The union criticized City Hall’s handling of the situation, saying it was yet another misstep in a series of failures following the January wildfires.

“This is not transparent, fair, or just. It’s yet another public blunder coming out of City Hall that makes the people of Los Angeles continue to question the motives and trustworthiness of our city’s leaders.”

Confidence is not high.

There are supporters who are being heard on the news, as well as released texts that form a timeline of Crowley’s efforts leading the charge against the infernos raging in the hills around her city and appear to paint a favorable picture of a crisis leader who was coordinating with her own and sister departments to manage resources and responses. 

Texts to, from Kristin Crowley show coordination efforts during LA’s wildfires

Text messages sent to and from former LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley leading up to LA County’s disastrous wildfires and the weeks after show the coordination and direction from multiple agencies to protect residents to their best abilities.

On the evening of Jan. 6, LA City Emergency Manager Carol Parks sent Crowley and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell a text just after 9 p.m. that the city would open its emergency operations center (EOC) at a level 3, or the lowest level, of staffing in wake of anticipated high winds and dangerously dry conditions. Roughly 13 hours later, Pacific Palisades began to burn, followed by a series of other smaller fires and a larger brush fire in Altadena. The Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire both ballooned to burn more than 37,000 acres together.

When a level 3 EOC is activated, emergency personnel are prepared to respond if the occasion arises. It’s typically a step above what normal operations look like in anticipation of potential dangers. The days leading up to LA County’s deadly brush fires promised dangerous weather conditions, with meteorologists warning of strong Santa Ana winds coupled with low humidity.

As flames ripped through several communities in the region, Crowley followed up with Parks at about 10:38 a.m. that same day, directing her to escalate matters to a Level 2 EOC, texts show. Just before 7:30 p.m., the evening of Jan. 7, Parks asked the former fire chief to consider moving things to Level 1 EOC staffing the next morning as conditions continued to worsen and firefighters struggled to get a handle on the fire, to which Crowley agreed.

The mayor’s office used the texts that were released as proof that nobody told her anything.

…”These documents show that in the day leading up to the fires, Chief Crowley was not in text contact with the Mayor or any member of her staff regarding the coming weather event until after the fires had already broken out. Before other major weather emergencies, the Mayor—or at minimum, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff— has received a direct call from the Fire Chief, flagging the severity of the situation. This time, that call never came,” wrote the mayor’s office in response to the texts.

Some text messages have come to light showing how Los Angeles officials, including the now-former fire chief Kristin Crowley, coordinated the response to the Palisades Fire.

Full story: https://t.co/b5eshLNdh2 pic.twitter.com/DV5qP8MfF5

— KNX News 97.1 FM (@knxnews) March 3, 2025

As I’m not a professional crisis manager – I only play one here at HotAir – I am in no position to judge if these are exculpatory for Crowley or not. 

I do know they prove that Bass is a peach.

And that this isn’t going to be a quiet little vote session hidden away in an agenda on a Friday evening by a council and mayor that just wants it to go away.

The toxic clean-up continues.