after-action report

Shortly before releasing an after-action report on the Palisades fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department issued a confidential memo detailing plans to protect Mayor Karen Bass and others from “reputational harm” in connection with the city’s handling of the catastrophic blaze, records obtained by The Times show.

“It’s our goal to prepare and protect Mayor Bass, the City, and the LAFD from reputational harm associated with the upcoming public release of its AARR, through a comprehensive strategy that includes risk assessment, proactive and reactive communications, and crisis response,” the memo states, referring to the acronym for the LAFD’s report.

The 13-page document is on LAFD letterhead and includes email addresses for department officials, representatives of Bass’ office and public relations consultants hired to help shape messaging about the fire, although it is not known to whom it was eventually distributed. The Times obtained the memo, titled “LAFD AARR: Strategic Response Plan,” from the LAFD through the California Public Records Act.

Labeled “for internal use only,” the memo, which is unsigned, aims to shape news media coverage of the report’s findings, including through efforts to “minimize tough Q&A” by asking to hold closed-door briefings with the Fire Commission and City Council. The memo is undated but notes that “This plan has been updated with the latest timeline as of 10/7.” The after-action report was released to the public on Oct. 8.

The Times disclosed in December that the report had been altered to deflect criticism of the LAFD’s failure to pre-deploy engines and crews to the Palisades ahead of the Jan. 7, 2025 fire, among other shortcomings in the city’s preparations for and response to the deadly disaster.

Mayor Karen Bass joins L.A. City Council and community safety leaders at City Hall in downtown Los Angeles on February 17, 2026.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Bass has repeatedly denied that she was involved in any effort to water down the report, which was meant to spell out mistakes and suggest measures to avoid repeating them after a fire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office have said that after receiving an early draft of the report, the mayor told then-Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva that it could expose the city to legal liabilities.

Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public, the sources told The Times early this month. The mayor has said that The Times’ story based on the sources’ accounts was “completely fabricated.”

Representatives of Bass’ office and the LAFD did not immediately comment this week on the 13-page “strategic response plan” memo.

The disclosure about the effort to protect the mayor’s reputation comes after other records revealed that she was leading damage control efforts around both the after-action report and an announcement by federal prosecutors that the Palisades fire was caused by a rekindling of a smaller blaze.

The LAFD was facing scrutiny over why it failed to put out the earlier blaze.

“Any additional interviews with the Fire Chief would likely depend on the Mayor’s guidance,” LAFD spokesperson Capt. Erik Scott wrote in an Oct. 9 email to a Bass aide, Villanueva and others. “Regarding a press conference, I would be cautious as it could invite a high volume of challenging questions, and this would also be contingent on the Mayor’s direction.”

Before releasing the after-action report, the LAFD formed an internal crisis management team and brought in the public relations consultants, Beverly Hills-based Lede Co., to help shape its messaging about the fire. In the 13-page strategy memo, Lede, whose fee was covered by the nonprofit Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, is tasked with helping to manage and monitor news media coverage of the report.

The latest set of documents obtained by The Times includes a “Tough Q&A” with proposed answers to questions that news reporters might ask Bass and Villanueva. The questions for Bass centered around the budget and former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley’s claims that budget restrictions hampered the department’s ability to fight the Palisades fire, with the proposed answers emphasizing that the budget was not cut.

Ronnie Villanueva speaks during his appointment as interim LAFD Chief on Feb. 21, 2025.

(Drew A. Kelley / Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images)

Villanueva’s proposed answers focused on the “unstoppable” nature of the fire and improvements LAFD has since made to ensure adequate staffing on red flag days.

Other internal emails reviewed by The Times show that Bass met with Villanueva about the after-action report in mid-July.

The mayor’s role in altering the after-action report and managing its release has become an issue in her reelection campaign. Bass previously said through a spokesperson that her office merely encouraged the LAFD to fact-check references in the report about city finances and the forecast of high winds leading up to Jan. 7. The mayor later told The Times that the report was “technical,” saying, “I’m not a firefighter.”

The changes that ended up in the final report were significant, with some Palisades residents and former LAFD chiefs saying they amounted to a cover-up.

A week after the fire, The Times exposed LAFD officials’ decisions not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available engines and firefighters to the Palisades and other high-risk areas before the dangerous winds hit. Bass later removed Crowley, citing the failure to keep firefighters on duty for a second shift.

An initial draft of the after-action report said the pre-deployment decisions “did not align” with policy, but the final version said the number of companies pre-deployed “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”

Fire fighters work to extinguish flames during the Eaton fire on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Altadena, CA.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

The author of the report, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse the final version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report, in his words, “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”

Even with the deletions and changes, the report delivered a harsh critique of the LAFD’s performance during the Palisades fire, pointing to a disorganized response, failures in communication and chiefs who didn’t understand their roles. The report found that top commanders lacked a fundamental knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics, including “basic suppression techniques.”

Fire Chief Jaime Moore, an LAFD veteran whom Bass named as chief in November, has said he is focused on the future and not interested in assigning blame for changes to the report. But he said he will not allow similar edits to future after-action reports.

The after-action report included just a brief reference to the Lachman fire, a small Jan. 1, 2025, blaze that rekindled six days later into the Palisades fire.

The Times found that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the Lachman burn area the day after the fire was supposedly extinguished, despite complaints by crew members that the ground still was smoldering.

After the Times report, Bass directed Moore to commission an independent investigation into the LAFD’s handling of the Lachman fire.

LAFD officials have said that most of the 42 recommendations in the after-action report have been implemented, including mandatory staffing protocols on red flag days and training on wind-driven fires, tactical operations and evacuations.

Pringle is a former Times staff writer.

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso is not running for Los Angeles mayor, in a last-minute twist less than two days before the deadline to enter the race.

Caruso had been reconsidering whether or not to run, citing a Times article, published Wednesday, in which two unnamed sources described Mayor Karen Bass’ involvement in watering down an after-action report on the Palisades fire.

“Rick is incredibly moved by the outpouring of support but reached an earlier decision in a thoughtful process and it stands. He will not be a candidate for mayor,” said Mike Murphy, a political consultant for Caruso.

Caruso’s decision reaffirms the one he made last month, when he announced that he would not run for mayor or governor, ending a long period of speculation among political watchers. Caruso, who ran against Bass in 2022, said at the time that he was “deeply disappointed to step back from an election I believe is so critical to California’s future.”

His decision not to run comes the same day that former Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Austin Beutner bowed out of the race due to the death of his 22-year-old daughter.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath was still weighing a decision and said Thursday that she was receiving many calls from labor and business leaders who would support her run. Maryam Zar, founder of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, was also thinking about entering the race.

Bass already faces challenges from reality television star Spencer Pratt, a Republican who lost his home in the Palisades fire; Rae Huang, a community organizer who is a democratic socialist; and Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and nonprofit executive.

Candidates have until noon on Saturday to file their paperwork.

Caruso, the developer of popular malls such as the Grove and the Americana at Brand, lost to Bass by 10 percentage points in 2022 despite outspending her 11 to 1 after throwing $100 million of his own fortune into the race.

The 66-year-old served as president of the L.A. Police Commission in the 2000s, helping to hire William Bratton as police chief. He was appointed to the Department of Water and Power board in 1984, at age 26 — the youngest commissioner in city history at the time.

Caruso is a former Republican who registered as a Democrat in 2022 and has faced questions about his past party registration.

The developer has made public safety and quality of life issues his main talking points, along with criticism of Bass over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire.

Caruso — whose son and daughter lost their homes in the Palisades fire — called The Times’ latest reporting on the after-action report an “absolute outrage.”

“Karen Bass actively covered up a report meant to examine the most significant disaster in Los Angeles history,” he said. “This is a complete loss of public trust and an intentional act of covering up the actions that led to people dying.”

Bass’ office said the mayor did not make changes to the report.

“There is absolutely no reason why she would request those details be altered or erased when she herself has been critical of the response to the fire,” the office said in a statement Wednesday after the Times article was published.

For nearly two months, Mayor Karen Bass has repeatedly denied that she was involved in altering an after-action report on the Palisades fire to downplay failures by the city and the Los Angeles Fire Department in combating the catastrophic blaze.

But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after receiving an early draft, the mayor told then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liabilities for those failures. Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public, the sources said — and that is what happened.

The changes to the report, which was released on Oct. 8, came to light through a Times investigation published in December.

The sources told The Times that two people close to Bass informed them of the mayor’s behind-the-scenes role in watering down the report. One source spoke to both of the people; the other spoke to one of them. The sources requested anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor’s private conversations with Villanueva and others. The Times is not naming the people who are close to Bass because that could have the effect of identifying the sources.

One Bass confidant told one of the sources that “the mayor didn’t tell the truth when she said she had nothing to do with changing the report.” The source said the confidant advised Bass that altering the report “was a bad idea” because it would hurt her politically.

According to the source, the two confidants said that Bass held onto the original draft until after the changes were made. The source added that both confidants said they are prepared to testify under oath to verify their accounts if the matter ends up in a legal proceeding.

Both sources said they did not know if Villanueva or anyone else in the LAFD or in the mayor’s office made line-by-line edits at Bass’ specific instructions, or if they imposed the changes after receiving a general direction from her.

“All the changes [The Times] reported on were the ones Karen wanted,” the second source said, referring primarily to the newspaper’s determination that the report was altered to deflect attention from the LAFD’s failure to pre-deploy crews to 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 has previously rejected several requests by 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 red-line, review every page or review every draft of the report.”

The spokesperson, Clara Karger, said the mayor’s office asked only that the LAFD fact-check any findings regarding 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 about any changes.

“The only thing that I told them to do was I told them to talk to Matt Szabo about the budget and the funding, and that was it,” she 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 might have had with Bass about it.

After admitting that the report was altered in 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 that.

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 for “refinements.” Hudley Hayes said she did not know what the refinements were, but she was concerned enough to consult a deputy city attorney about possible changes to the report.

Hudley Hayes, who was appointed by Bass, said that after reviewing an early draft of the report as well as the final document, she was satisfied that “material findings” were not altered.

But the changes to the after-action report, which was meant to spell out mistakes and suggest measures to avoid repeating them after the worst fire in city history, were significant, with some Palisades residents and former LAFD chiefs saying they amounted to a “cover-up.”

A week after the Jan. 7, 2025, fire, The Times exposed LAFD officials’ decisions not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available engines and firefighters to the Palisades or other high-risk areas ahead of the dangerous winds. Bass later ousted Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, citing the failure to keep firefighters on duty for a second shift.

An initial draft of the after-action report said the pre-deployment decisions “did not align” with policy, while the final version said the number of companies pre-deployed “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”

The author of the report, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse the final version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report, in his words, “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”

Before the report was released, the LAFD formed an internal crisis management team and brought in a public relations firm to help shape its messaging about the fire, though it’s unclear what role each played, if any, in editing the report.

Moore, an LAFD veteran whom Bass named as chief in November, said he is focused on the future and not interested in assigning blame for changes to the report. But he said he will not allow similar edits to future after-action reports.

Asked last month how he would handle a mayor’s request for similar changes, he said: “That’s very easy, I’d just say absolutely not. We don’t do that.”

The after-action report included just a brief reference to the Lachman fire, a small Jan. 1, 2025, blaze that rekindled six days later into the Palisades fire.

The Times found that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the Lachman burn area the day after the fire was supposedly extinguished, despite complaints by crew members that the ground still was smoldering. The Times reviewed text messages among firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the fire, describing the crew’s concerns, and reported that at least one battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section knew about them for months.

After the Times report, Bass directed Moore to commission an independent investigation into the LAFD’s handling of the Lachman fire.

LAFD officials said Tuesday that most of the 42 recommendations in the after-action report have been implemented, including mandatory staffing protocols on red flag days and training on wind-driven fires, tactical operations and evacuations.

Pringle is a former Times staff writer.