For nearly two months, Mayor Karen Bass has repeatedly denied involvement in altering a post-Palisades Fire report to downplay the failures of the city and the Los Angeles Fire Department in fighting the catastrophic fire.
But two sources with knowledge of Bass's office said that after receiving an initial draft, the mayor told then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liability for those failures. Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD's actions removed or watered down before the report was made public, sources said, and that's what happened.
The changes to the report, which was published on October 8, came to light through a Times investigation published in December.
Sources told The Times that two people close to Bass briefed them on the mayor's behind-the-scenes role in watering down the report. A source spoke to both people; the other spoke with 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 have the effect of identifying sources.
A Bass confidant told one of the sources that “the mayor was not telling the truth when she said she had nothing to do with changing the report.” The source said the confidant warned Bass that altering the report “was a bad idea” because it would hurt her politically.
According to the source, the two confidants said Bass kept the original draft until the changes were made. The source added that both confidants said they are willing to testify under oath to verify their accounts if the matter ends up in a legal proceeding.
Both sources said they did not know whether Villanueva or someone else in the LAFD or the mayor's office made line-by-line edits following specific instructions from Bass, or whether they imposed the changes after receiving general direction from her.
“All the changes [The Times] reported were the ones Karen wanted,” the second source said, referring primarily to the newspaper's determination that the report was doctored to divert attention from the lack of prior deployment of crews in the Palisades before the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and other structures, amid forecasts of catastrophically high winds.
Bass did not respond this week to a request for comment for this article.
The mayor previously declined several requests from the Times to be interviewed about the report. In response to written questions, a spokesperson for Bass' office said in an email in December: “The report was written and edited by the Fire Department. We did not review every page or review every draft of the report.”
Spokeswoman Clara Karger said the mayor's office only asked that the LAFD verify any findings about the effect of city finances and high wind forecasts on the department's performance in the fire.
In a brief interview last month, Bass told The Times that she did not work with the Fire Department on changes to the report, nor did the agency consult her on any changes.
“The only thing I told them to do was talk to Matt Szabo about the budget and financing, and that was it,” he said, referring to the city's administrative officer. “That's a technical report. I'm not a firefighter.”
Villanueva declined to comment. He has made no public statements about the after-action report or any conversations he had with Bass about it.
After admitting that the report was changed in some places so as not to reflect poorly on top commanders, Fire Chief Jaime Moore said last month that he did not plan to determine who was responsible, 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 was sent to the mayor's office to “refine it.” Hudley Hayes said she didn't know what the improvements were, but was concerned enough to consult with an assistant city attorney about possible changes to the report.
Hudley Hayes, who was appointed by Bass, said that after reviewing an initial draft of the report, as well as the final document, she was satisfied that the “material findings” were not altered.
But the changes to the after-action report, which was intended to explain the mistakes and suggest measures to prevent them from happening again after the worst fire in the city's history, were significant, and some Palisades residents and former LAFD chiefs said they amounted to a “cover-up.”
A week after the Jan. 7, 2025, fire, The Times exposed LAFD officials' decisions not to fully staff or 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 her failure to keep firefighters on duty for a second shift.
An initial draft of the after-action report said pre-deployment decisions “did not align” with policy, while the final version said the number of companies previously deployed “went beyond the LAFD's standard pre-deployment matrix.”
The report's author, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse the final version because of changes that altered its conclusions and made the report, in his words, “very unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”
Before the report was released, the LAFD formed an internal crisis management team and hired a public relations firm to help shape its messaging about the fire, although it is unclear what role, if any, each played in editing the report.
Moore, an LAFD veteran whom Bass named chief in November, said he is focused on the future and is not interested in blaming the changes in the report. But he said he will not allow similar edits in future after-action reports.
When asked last month how he would handle a request for similar changes from a mayor, he said: “That's very easy, I would say absolutely not. We don't do that.”
The after-action report included only a brief reference to the Lachman Fire, a small fire on January 1, 2025 that reignited six days later in the Palisades Fire.
The Times found that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burned area of Lachman the day after the fire was supposedly extinguished, despite crew members' complaints that the ground was still burning. The Times reviewed text messages between firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the fire, outlining the team's concerns, and reported that at least one battalion chief assigned to the LAFD's risk management section had known about them for months.
After the Times report, Bass ordered Moore to commission an independent investigation into the LAFD's handling of the Lachman fire.
LAFD officials said Tuesday that most of the after-action report's 42 recommendations have been implemented, including mandatory staffing protocols on red flag days and training on wind-ignited fires, tactical operations and evacuations.
Pringle is a former Times staff writer.
