Former L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley Says She Was Falsely Accused by Mayor Karen Bass

The former Los Angeles fire chief lashed out publicly at Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday, telling the City Council that the mayor had made “multiple false accusations” when removing her from the department’s top office for her handling of the devastating Palisades fire in January.The remarks by the former chief, Kristin Crowley, were not enough to persuade the Council to reinstate her.But she used the meeting to mount her first vigorous defense of her actions as fire chief since Ms.

Bass demoted her on Feb.21 amid ongoing acrimony between the two officials.The mayor accused the chief last month of inadequately preparing for the fire, failing to fully brief her on the impending danger, and refusing to prepare a report for the city’s fire commission on the department’s response.

Ms.Bass said the lack of warning was to blame for her not canceling a diplomatic trip to Ghana.At least a dozen people died and nearly 7,000 structures were destroyed in the fire that ravaged much of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, one of two devastating blazes in Southern California that began on Jan.

7.With scores of Los Angeles firefighters in T-shirts packing the Council chambers on Tuesday, Ms.Crowley defended her department’s response, saying that she could not have deployed more firefighters or engines because the agency was so badly underfunded that it had critical shortages of personnel and equipment.Among the mayor’s complaints was that the chief had declined on the first day of the Palisades fire to order about 1,000 firefighters to remain on duty after their shift.

Ms.Crowley said on Tuesday that she did not keep those firefighters on because there were not enough operable engines to deploy them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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