Palisades community reacts to claims LA Mayor Bass altered fire report
A new report from the LA Times found Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass allegedly watered down the after-action report on the deadly and destructive Palisades Fire that hit the city in January 2025. Community leaders in the Palisades told Straight Arrow News they’re frustrated by the report but not surprised.
Bass accusations
The Times report cites two unnamed sources with knowledge of Bass’ office. They claimed Bass helped alter the after-action report to downplay the city’s failures and avoid potential liability.
The Palisades Fire killed 12 people and burned more than 6,000 structures.
That report is meant to fully analyze how that fire started, assess the effectiveness of the response, identify any operational gaps and outline lessons for future disaster response.
The Times’ sources said Bass received an early copy of the report and told then-interim fire chief Ronnie Villanueva that details in the first draft could expose the city to legal liabilities for certain failures.
The source said Bass made sure certain actions from the fire department were either softened or removed from the report altogether.
One issue, the newspaper was told, stands out. The sources claimed Bass wanted a portion of the report noting that the city didn’t fully staff and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the fire conditions altered. The Times found earlier versions of the report that used a more critical tone on that decision.
Bass has denied those allegations. Her office said there would have been no reason for the mayor to alter those criticisms when she had made similar comments herself.
Reaction
“I was pretty pissed off,” Peggy Holter, who lost her home in the fire and is now a board member of her homeowner’s association, told Straight Arrow News after hearing the accusations against Bass.
“If they are really held responsible, it’s going to be huge city money,” Holter added.
Others who lost their home in the fire felt the same.
“It’s irritating every time,” Mark Smith, who lost his home and is now a representative for the rebuilding group Team Palisades, told SAN.
“In short, politicians lie,” Smith added. “We get very, very good information. Particularly as most of us are involved in wildfire litigation actions, and so we’ve seen all the evidence that’s been pulled together, and we know what the sources of the information are. So, we really know what the truth is.”
There are numerous lawsuits over the fire, including a large one filed by survivors. That suit names the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power as the defendant.
“The fire department is the one department that’s not a defendant in the lawsuit, so it makes a lot of sense for them to shift the blame over onto the fire department,” Smith said.
Holter agreed that Bass was shifting blame.
“She’s a politician,” she said.
Despite both Holter and Smith being frustrated by what they learned from the LA Times report, neither seemed shocked by it.
“We’ve been seeing this all along,” Smith said.
“She was taking it for being in Ghana, which I don’t think makes any difference whether she was in Ghana or not, if she was paying attention to what was going on in LA,” Holter added.
Bass was in Ghana at the time the fires began, attending the inauguration of that country’s new president.
Moving forward, neither person SAN spoke with said they felt confident in Bass’ leadership of the city.
“I don’t feel confident in her ability even if there’s not another disaster, but there’s always disasters here anyway,” Holter said.
“I think we would have been much better prepared had someone with more of a business background like Rick Caruso had been the mayor,” Smith added.
Caruso ran against Bass in the last election. His office declined a request for comment.
Recovery
More than a year after the fire, the rebuilding of the Palisades has moved steadily along, but slowly.
Despite the slower pace and the new frustrations of the LA Times report, there’s still a lot of confidence in the ongoing rebuild.
“I think it’s going really well,” Holter said. “It takes a long time to start. To interview lots of companies, and there were a bunch of them, and then to find someone who’s responsible and then to get going.”
Smith echoed those sentiments.
“Really well, in the last two weeks,” he said. “We threw out our board, replaced it with our slate of directors, and we’ve got the build started. We just recently won and are getting our plan check and permit fees waived by the city. So, it’s been a good week.”
And while frustration remains with the mayor, there are other local politicians attempting to make a difference.
“Traci Park, our councilwoman, has been terrific,” Holter said. “The city council had passed regulations relieving single-family dwellings of the need to pay for rebuild permits. And we went down there and talked to her and talked to the city council. And so, we’ve just had multifamily dwellings and condos [included]. In other words, everybody should be included, not having to pay huge fees.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
