Column: Let’s focus on putting out the fires before fueling one at City Hall
- Share via
Last week, as neighborhoods were being destroyed by fire, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley saw an opportunity, and she seized it.
City leaders had failed constituents, she said in an interview with Fox 11 news on Friday, because the department had been “underfunded, understaffed and under-resourced” for years.
Crowley has made those arguments in the past, but as she took to the air last week, telling CNN that a $17-million budget cut had crippled the department, I wondered about her timing.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
If I’m watching my house and my community go up in flames, with the death toll mounting, new fires sparking, and fear spreading across the region, I’d prefer that the fire chief focus on putting out the fires in the field before starting one at City Hall.
And now, in the aftermath of Crowley’s tirade against Mayor Karen Bass and other leaders, questions have arisen about whether LAFD brass failed to make the best use of its own resources.
On Tuesday, I spoke to a California fire official who questioned LAFD’s deployment strategies, saying that while it may be true that you can’t fight an inferno of epic proportions, the key is to “hit it early and hard,” before it becomes an inferno.
That didn’t happen, in his opinion. And in a Times story published Tuesday night, my colleagues Paul Pringle, Alene Tchekmedyian and Dakota Smith, hammered that very point.
LAFD “commanders decided not to assign … roughly 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water-carrying engines” before the fire sparked, said the story, in which numerous fire officials questioned LAFD’s deployment.
“Fire officials chose not to order the firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift … as the winds were building … and staffed just five of more than 40 engines that are available to aid in battling wildfires,” the story continued. “The department only started calling up more firefighters and deploying those additional engines after the Palisades blaze was burning out of control.”
Crowley and her staff defended the staffing and the strategy. One of her chief deputies told The Times that with winds howling up to 90 miles an hour in different directions, having more resources might not have made a difference.
To be fair, we’re living in extraordinary times that unfortunately are decreasingly extraordinary, and the calculus of firefighting has become more complicated.
Given the proximity of so many homes to wildlands, and given the drought and hurricane-force winds, many of us are living in a sprawling death trap. These life-threatening conditions are with us for the foreseeable future, and there’s a lot more to consider and plan for than the size of fire departments, including where and how we build, and most importantly — as Times climate columnist Sammy Roth pointed out — how we’re contributing to the conditions that put us in peril.
But having said all that, and being mindful of how easy second-guessing can be — especially early in the game — a full review of what happened in the Palisades is a duty, not an option. Same with the Eaton fire, which has destroyed much of Altadena, where the death toll is rising.
One thing nobody can second-guess is the effort by thousands of firefighters over the last week in difficult and dangerous conditions. Without their work, on the ground and in the air, the devastation and death toll would be far worse.
To Crowley, who understandably would like to deliver more backup to her troops, the way forward is clear.
“We know we need 62 new fire stations, we know we need to double the size of our firefighters,” she said last week on Fox 11 news, adding that since 2010, the number of department calls had doubled while the number of firefighters had decreased by 68.
Maybe Crowley was thinking this was a good time to strike, because L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has been politically damaged by her decision to leave town — for the inauguration of the president of Ghana — despite warnings of extreme fire danger.
As I wrote last week, that was a regrettable move by Bass, even though the fire would have been just as horrific if she had stayed in L.A. And it doesn’t help that, as my colleague Julia Wick reports, it turns out Bass was at a cocktail party on the other side of the world while L.A. burned.
Crowley also knows we’re all on edge, wondering whose neighborhood might be the next to go up in flames, and the pitch for more firefighters sounds pretty appealing.
But the chief’s budget claims have been disputed by some city officials, who say a round of raises, as well as firetruck and other equipment purchases, actually increased the outlay for the fire department.
And how many taxpayers would be willing to cover the cost of doubling the size of LAFD, especially considering that more than 85% of the department’s calls are for medical services, many of them minor, rather than fires?
“Certainly there are reasonable questions to be asked about the available resources, pre-deployment and planning, and those are best asked and answered when full information is available rather than in the heat of this particular moment,” said Andrew Glazier, a former member of the LAFD Fire Commission.
He said city officials should examine whether LAFD is “resourced correctly to balance the daily, low intensity emergencies with the infrequent but high intensity events like this particular fire. Most importantly, we as a city are going to have to ask ourselves what level of department staffing and infrastructure we are prepared to pay for in the long run, not just when we are facing down an inferno.”
A lot to discuss, once the smoke clears. And here’s hoping we can get there soon.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
