Los Angeles Mayor Removes Fire Chief, Blaming Her for Lack of Preparation

Mayor Karen Bass criticized Kristin Crowley for sending firefighters home before a blaze devastated the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles abruptly removed the city’s fire chief on Friday, seeking to end the increasing acrimony between the two officials in the weeks since a wildfire devastated the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

Ms. Bass said in a statement that she had removed Kristin Crowley, the chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, effective immediately. The announcement came after Ms. Bass said publicly that she herself made a mistake in leaving the country and traveling to Ghana days before the fires broke out. For weeks, she has privately told friends that she never would have left had she been fully briefed on the scope of the threat.

The mayor pinned the blame for that lack of warning on Ms. Crowley, an assertion the chief has disputed. In the hours before Ms. Bass left on her trip, the chief pointed out, there had been numerous warnings from weather forecasters about dangerously high winds and dry weather conditions.

The announcement capped weeks of tension. Veteran fire officials in the region had claimed that the response helmed by Chief Crowley was significantly less aggressive and experienced than the department had mounted in past situations of high fire risk. Chief Crowley maintained that the department had been underfunded, which the mayor and city budget officials denied.

In announcing the shake-up, the mayor criticized Ms. Crowley for sending home about 1,000 firefighters who were ending a shift the morning the Palisades fire broke out on Jan. 7, rather than ordering them to remain on duty. Such a move was a preventative measure that other fire officials in the region took, and that was viewed as a standard — if expensive — precaution in cases of extreme fire risk. Ms. Bass also accused Ms. Crowley of refusing to pursue an examination of what the fire department might have done wrong leading up to the fires.

“These require her removal,” Ms. Bass said in the statement. “The heroism of our firefighters — during the Palisades fire and every single day — is without question. Bringing new leadership to the Fire Department is what our city needs.”