LA fire chief identifies staffing gaps, says city failed
Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley discussed the staffing gaps that contributed to the response of the raging Southern California wildfires. (KTTV)
Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said that the City of Los Angeles failed its over 100,000 displaced residents who were forced to evacuate from the ongoing wildfire siege.
When asked by Fox News' affiliate, KTTV, if the City of Los Angeles, and its Mayor Karen Bass failed the city, Crowley replied: "Yes."
Crowley said that pressing staffing shortages impacted the department's response time when the blaze began tearing across Los Angeles.
"Any budget cut is going to impact our ability to provide service," she said. "That is a ground truth in regard to our ability. If there's a budget cut, we had to pull from somewhere else. What does that mean? That doesn't get done or that there are delays."
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Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley talks during a news conference at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center in the West Carson area of Los Angeles on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. (Richard Vogel/AP)
Crowley said that staffing shortages and lack of resources has been a pressing issue facing the department for years. She pointed to a series of memos she sent to the city identifying in detail the needs of the department.
"Since day one, we've identified huge gaps in regard to our service delivery and our ability of our firefighters' boots on the ground to do their jobs since day one," she said. "This is my third budget as we're going into 2025-2026, and what I can tell you is we are still understaffed, we're still under-resourced and we're still underfunded."
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When asked about how the budget cuts, which slashed the budget by $17,553,814 from $837,191,237 to $819,637,423, Crowley said that they "did impact our ability to provide service."
"On a normal day, our firefighters are running over 1,500 calls, and they're transporting 650 patients a day – let alone the last three days of what we've had," she said.
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The problems facing the fire department "isn't a new problem," Crowley told the local outlet.
"The amount of calls that our firefighters are running today has doubled since 2010, a 55% increase with 68 fewer people. Full transparency. This isn't a new problem for us," she said. "Since the three years that I've been in the seat, I've sounded the alarm to say we need more."
We are screaming to be properly funded to make sure that our firefighters can do their jobs…
"This is no longer sustainable. So with that, we are now in a position to be properly funded," she said. "We are screaming to be properly funded to make sure that our firefighters can do their jobs so that we can serve the community."
A firefighter works a fire during Eaton fire on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, CA. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Crowley said that the department has identified gaps in service and sent recommendations to the city.
"We know we need 62 new fire stations. We need to double the size of our firefighters. The growth of this city since 1960 has doubled and we have less fire stations," she said.
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"So when you talk about sounding the alarm and asking and requesting budgets that are easily justifiable based off of the data, real data shows what the fire department needs to serve this beautiful city and the beautiful community that we swore that we would. That's what that is about," she said.
Speaking from the heart, Crowley said: "None of us on the fire department are politicians."
"Firefighters are here to serve them, first and foremost. Again, none of us on the fire department are politicians. We're public servants first," she said. "We took an oath to serve the public before ourselves and even before our families."
"So with that, I want to focus on path forward. I want to focus on what the LAFD needs," Crowley said. "What our people need to do their jobs is to make sure that we can save lives and that we can protect property to the greatest capacity."
"But we need to be funded appropriately," she said. "And that's where my head is at."
Beachfront properties are left smoldering in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, in Malibu, Calif.? (AP Photo/John Locher)
In an interview with CNN, Crowley said that she was asked to create a "budget reduction exercise," which, if implemented, would have resulted in 15 fire stations closing and the removal of 300 firefighters.
"I was also directed to develop a plan as part of a budget reduction exercise and that could equate to 48.8 million dollars and I warned, I rang the bell, that these additional cuts could be very, very devastating for our ability to provide public safety," she said.
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"That [the budget reduction exercise] would have resulted in 15 fire stations being closed and the potential elimination of 300 firefighters," she said. "Again, I want to be clear, I submitted a very large budget that will actually allow our firefighters to do their job."
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
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