fire department

The Los Angeles Police Department has released a report that identifies several shortcomings in its response to the devastating Palisades fire, including communication breakdowns, inconsistent record-keeping and poor coordination at times with other agencies — most notably the city’s Fire Department.

The after-action report called the January blaze a “once in a lifetime cataclysmic event” and praised the heroic actions of many officers, but said the LAPD’s missteps presented a “valuable learning opportunity” with more climate-related disasters likely looming in the future.

LAPD leaders released the 92-page report and presented the findings to the Police Commission at the civilian oversight panel’s public meeting Tuesday.

The report found that while the Fire Department was the lead agency, coordination with the LAPD was “poor” on Jan. 7, the first day of the fire. Though personnel from both agencies were working out of the same command post, they failed to “collectively establish a unified command structure or identify shared objectives, missions, or strategies,” the report said.

Uncertainty about who was in charge was another persistent issue, with more confusion sown by National Guard troops that were deployed to the area. Department leaders were given no clear guidelines on what the guard’s role would be when they arrived, the report said.

The mix-ups were the result of responding to a wildfire of unprecedented scale, officials said. At times the flames were advancing at 300 yards a minute, LAPD assistant chief Michael Rimkunas told the commission.

“Hopefully we don’t have to experience another natural disaster, but you never know,” Rimkunas said, adding that the endeavor was “one of the largest and most complex traffic control operations in its history.”

Between Jan. 11 and Jan. 16, when the LAPD’s operation was at its peak, more than 700 officers a day were assigned to the fire, the report said.

The report found that officials failed to maintain a chronological log about the comings and goings of LAPD personnel at the fire zone.

“While it is understandable that the life-threatening situation at hand took precedence over the completion of administrative documentation,” the report said, “confusion at the command post about how many officers were in the field “resulted in diminished situational awareness.”

After the fire first erupted, the department received more than 160 calls for assistance, many of them for elderly or disabled residents who were stuck in their homes — though the report noted that the disruption of cell service contributed to widespread confusion.

The communication challenges continued throughout the day, the report found.

Encroaching flames forced authorities to move their command post several times. An initial staging area, which was in the path of the evacuation route and the fire, was consumed within 30 minutes, authorities said.

But because of communication breakdowns caused by downed radio and cellphone towers, dispatchers sometimes had trouble reaching officers in the field and police were forced to “hand deliver” important paper documents from a command post to its staging area on Zuma Beach, about 20 miles away.

Several commissioners asked about reports of journalists being turned away from fire zones in the weeks that followed the fire’s outbreak.

Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said there was some trepidation about whether to allow journalists into the fire-ravaged area while authorities were still continuing their search for bodies of fire victims.

Commissioner Rasha Gerges Shields said that while she had some concerns about the LAPD’s performance, overall she was impressed and suggested that officers should be commended for their courage. The department has said that dozens of officers lost their homes to the fires.

The report also recommended that the department issue masks and personal protective equipment after there was a shortage for officers on the front lines throughout the first days of the blaze.

The Palisades fire was one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history, engulfing nearly 23,000 acres, leveling more than 6,000 structures and killing 12 people. More than 60,000 people were evacuated. The deaths of five people within L.A. city limits remain under investigation by the LAPD’s Major Crimes Division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The LAPD reports details how at 11:15 a.m., about 45 minutes after the first 911 calls, the call was made to issue a citywide tactical alert, the report said. The department stayed in a heightened state of alert for 29 days, allowing it to draw resources from other parts of the city, but also meaning that certain calls would not receive a timely police response.

As the flames began to engulf a nearby hillside, more officers began responding to the area, including a contingent that had been providing security at a visit by President Trump.

Initially, LAPD officers operated in largely a rescue- and traffic-control role. But as the fire wore on, police began to conduct crime suppression sweeps in the evacuation zones where opportunistic burglars were breaking into homes they knew were empty.

In all, 90 crimes were reported in the fire zone, including four crimes against people, a robbery and three aggravated assaults, 46 property crimes, and 40 other cases, ranging from a weapons violation to identity theft. The department made 19 arrests.

The new report comes weeks after the city of Los Angeles put out its own assessment of the fire response — and on the heels of federal prosecutors arresting and charging a 29-year-old Uber driver with intentionally setting a fire Jan. 1 that later grew into the Palisades fire.

The LAPD’s Major Crimes and Robbery-Homicide units also worked with the ATF to investigate the fire’s cause.

Los Angeles firefighters were hampered by a lack of resources for red flag weather conditions in their initial response to the Palisades fire, an internal after-action review report found.

The long-awaited 70-page report, produced by the Los Angeles Fire Department, was released late Wednesday afternoon on the heels of an announcement by federal prosecutors that they had arrested and charged a man with intentionally setting a fire on Jan. 1 that later reignited and became the Palisades fire.

Federal investigators determined that the Jan. 7 fire was a so-called holdover from the Jan. 1 fire, continuing to smolder and burn underground after firefighters thought they had extinguished it. The investigators said that heavy winds six days later caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history.

In its after-action report, the Fire Department listed almost 100 challenges that firefighters faced during the Palisades fire, including an inability to secure the origin of the fire, an ineffective process for recalling firefighters who were off-duty to come back into work, and fire chiefs with little to no experience handling such a major incident. During the initial attack, the report said, most firefighters worked for more than 36 hours without rest.

The report cited a delay in communicating evacuation orders, which resulted in spontaneous evacuations without structured traffic control, causing people to block routes to the fire, the report said. The initial staging area, which was in the path of the evacuation route and the fire, was consumed by flames within 30 minutes, the report said.

The Palisades fire, which started at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 7, was one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history, leveling thousands of homes and killing 12 people.

A Times investigation found that LAFD officials did not pre-deploy any engines to the Palisades ahead of the fire, despite warnings about extreme weather. In preparing for the winds, the department staffed up only five of more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force.

Those engines could have been pre-positioned in the Palisades and elsewhere, as had been done in the past during similar weather.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Federal investigators have determined that the wildfire that leveled much of Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7 was a so-called “holdover” from a smaller fire that was set intentionally on New Year’s Day, about a week earlier.

After Los Angeles firefighters suppressed the Jan. 1 fire known as the Lachman fire, it continued to smolder and burn underground, “unbeknownst to anyone,” according to federal officials. They said heavy winds six days later caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history.

The revelations — unveiled in a criminal complaint and attached affidavit Wednesday charging the alleged arsonist, Jonathan Rinderknecht — raise questions about what the Los Angeles Fire Department could have done to prevent the conflagration in the days leading up to the expected windstorm on Jan. 7 and the extraordinary fire risk that would come with it.

“This affidavit puts the responsibility on the fire department,” said Ed Nordskog, former head of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s arson unit. “There needs to be a commission examining why this rekindled fire was allowed to reignite.”

He added: “The arsonist set the first fire, but the Fire Department proactively has a duty to do certain things.”

A Times investigation found that LAFD officials did not pre-deploy any engines to the Palisades ahead of the Jan. 7 fire, despite warnings about extreme weather. In preparing for the winds, the department staffed up only five of more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force.

Those engines could have been pre-positioned in the Palisades and elsewhere, as had been done in the past during similar weather.

Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who was involved in the investigation into the Palisades fire’s origin, said the blame for the fire’s re-ignition lies solely with the person who started it.

“That fire burned deep within the ground, in roots and in structure, and remained active for several days,” Cooper said. “No matter how good they are, they can’t see that, right?”

But, he said, wildland firefighters commonly patrol for days or weeks to prevent re-ignitions.

When he worked at a state forestry agency, he said, “we would have a lightning strike, and it would hit a tree, and it would burn for days, sometimes weeks, and then ignite into a forest fire. We would go suppress that, and then every day, for weeks on end, we would patrol those areas to make sure they didn’t reignite,” he said. “If we saw evidence of smoke or heat, then we would provide resources to that. So that, I know that’s a common practice, and it’s just, it’s a very difficult fire burning underground.”

The affidavit provides a window into the firefighting timeline on Jan. 1, when just after midnight, the Lachman fire was ignited near a small clearing near the Temescal Ridge Trail.

12:13 a.m.: An image taken from a UCSD camera, approximately two-tenths of a mile away, shows a bright spot in the upper left — the Lachman fire.

12:20 a.m.: Rinderknecht drives down Palisades Drive, passing fire engines heading up Palisades Drive, responding to the fire.

That night, the LAFD, with help from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, used water drops from aircraft and hose lines, as well as handlines dug by L.A. County crews, to attack the fire, according to the complaint. Firefighters continued suppression efforts during the day on Jan. 1, wetting down areas within the fire perimeter. When the suppression efforts were over, the affidavit said, the fire crews left fire hoses on site, in case they needed to be redeployed.

Jan. 2: LAFD personnel returned to the scene to collect the fire hoses. According to the affidavit, it appeared to them that the fire was fully extinguished.

But investigators determined that during the Lachman fire, a firebrand became seated within the dense vegetation, continuing to smolder and burn within the roots underground. Strong winds brought the embers to the surface, to grow into a deadly conflagration.

Los Angeles County supervisors criticized the long-awaited $1.9-million outside investigation on government failures during the January wildfires as full of gaping holes after outcry from residents who say the report failed to answer their key question: Why did evacuation alerts come so late for so many?

“I’ve heard from many residents, some of whom are in the audience, who share that this report leads to more questions than answers, and, quite frankly, a lot of anger,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents unincorporated Altadena, as the board discussed the report’s findings at its Tuesday meeting.

Nineteen people died in the Eaton fire, all but one of whom was found in west Altadena, an area that did not get evacuation alerts until hours after the fire threatened the area.

The report from McChrystal Group found, among other failures, that there was no clear guide of which county department was responsible for deciding which areas to evacuate. The responsibility for evacuations is split among the Office of Emergency Management, the Sheriff’s Department and the Fire Department, and none have taken responsibility for the evacuation blunders. The county also failed to consistently issue evacuation warnings to neighborhoods next to ones that were under an evacuation order, the report found.

The pushback by supervisors is notable because they commissioned the report in January and vowed it would get to the bottom of what went wrong. When it was unveiled last week, top county officials hailed it as a blueprint for improvements. But it almost immediately faced criticism from residents and others.

Despite the shortcomings, the supervisors said they were eager to implement the report’s recommendations, which included making it clear who was responsible for issuing evacuations and beefing up staffing for the Office of Emergency Management. The supervisors unanimously approved a motion Tuesday, to start the process of implementing some of the report’s recommendations.

One of the report’s problems, Barger said, is that so many noncounty agencies declined to participate in the report. Several California fire agencies including the Pasadena Fire Department, the state’s Office of Emergency Services and the Los Angeles Fire Department declined to provide information, according to the report.

“It is inexcusable and I would challenge any one of those departments, or any one of those chiefs, to look the survivors in the eye and explain why they were compelled not to cooperate, because that does lead to ‘What are you hiding?’” said Barger, who said she was “incredibly frustrated and disappointed.”

“We have very one-sided information,” acknowledged Erin Sutton, a partner with McChrystal Group. “It is the county information.”

Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said the consultants had been “unable to compel” other agencies to share their automatic vehicle locator data. The Times used county vehicle locator data earlier this year to reveal that most county fire trucks didn’t shift into west Altadena until long after it was ravaged by fire. The Times was not able to obtain vehicle locator data from any of the other fire agencies that were dispatched to the Eaton fire that night.

“We were out of L.A. County Fire trucks. We were relying on our mutual aid partners that were there,” Marrone said. “We just don’t have their data.”

The Sheriff’s Department has also yet to release vehicle locator data on where deputies were that evening. Sheriff Robert Luna said Tuesday that the department had dozens of deputies assisting with evacuations that night.

“We can absolutely do better, and we’re already putting systems in place so that we can do better,” Luna told the supervisors Tuesday. “They weren’t waiting for warnings.”

A spokesperson for the Pasadena Fire Department said the agency didn’t participate beyond providing written information because the “scope of the review was the response by Los Angeles County.” The L.A. Fire Department said it didn’t participate because it was outside the agency’s jurisdiction. The state’s Office of Emergency Services noted it was already conducting its own review.

“I too am frustrated by what I feel are areas of incompleteness,” said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district was scarred by the Palisades fire.

The 133-page report makes only one mention of deaths from the fire. Horvath said she felt the report failed to include the “very painful” accounts from survivors and should have delved into the issue of rogue alerts that urged many to get ready to evacuate even though they were miles away from fire.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell said she wanted to highlight the racial disparity of outcomes in Altadena, an issue she called the “elephant in the room” and one that was not mentioned in the report. Black residents of Altadena were more likely to have their homes damaged or destroyed by the Eaton fire, according to research by UCLA.

Residents feel deeply that their experience — receiving later alerts and fewer fire resources than their neighbors — is not reflected in the report, she said. “We have to figure out how to acknowledge that disconnect, not diminish it,” she said

Congresswoman Judy Chu, whose district includes Altadena, said in a letter to the board that the report left “unresolved questions” around evacuation failures.

“The report does not explain why officials concluded it was safe to wait until 3:25 a.m. to issue the order, or who was responsible for that decision,” she wrote.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors reviewed the McChrystal report on the January fires at a meeting Tuesday.

(Terry Castleman / Los Angeles Times)

Standing on a vacant lot in west Altadena, hundreds of residents said they were frustrated with the report.

“Officials have responded with unconscionable ineptitude,” said Kara Vallow, who said she believed the document “goes out of its way to avoid accountability.”

Speakers called for Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to investigate separately, questioning the independence of the report. Survivors held signs with victims’ names, while others questioned why alerts came so late for west Altadena.

Lauren Randolph, a west Altadena resident, asked why, if flames were near her home in Farnsworth Park at 2:20 a.m., her family nearby didn’t receive an evacuation alert until almost 3:25 a.m.

“I ask again — who was in charge?” she said.

She said she felt the report failed to look into west Altadena, where she alleged that 911 calls were ignored and evacuation notices came late, noting that the area was home to most of Altadena’s Black and brown families.

The report emphasized that the “fire front” had not crossed into west Altadena, where nearly all the deaths took place, until around 5 a.m., nearly two hours after the evacuation orders came for the area. But many west Altadenans decried the description, saying their homes started to burn long before then.

“That is not true,” Sylvie Andrews said, the crowd around her laughing at the assertion.

Shawn Tyrie, a partner with McChrystal Group, acknowledged Tuesday that the satellite images they used don’t provide a “definitive picture,” particularly in cases with extreme wind, ember cast and smoke.

“Those images are severely degraded in smoke conditions like that,” he said, leaving open the possibility that the fire was in west Altadena well before 5 a.m., as residents previously reported to The Times.

Altadena residents voice their displeasure with the McChrystal report shortly before the Board of Supervisors met to review the report.

(Terry Castleman / Los Angeles Times)

Many of the residents’ questions were echoed Tuesday at the Hall of Administration by Barger, who drilled down on the difference between the fire front, which didn’t cross into west Altadena until 5 a.m, and the ember cast, which started dangerous spot fires in the neighborhood long before then.

“For people I’ve talked to who lost their homes, fire front versus ember cast mean nothing other than there was fire in their community, in their neighborhood, burning down homes,” she said.

Marrone said he believed they should have taken the ember cast into account.

“With hindsight being 2020, we do understand now that we must evacuate well ahead of not only the fire front … but we also need to take into account the massive ember cast,” he said.

Marrone said repeatedly that his firefighters were overwhelmed responding to multiple fires that day. Firefighters battled the Eaton fire as hurricane-force winds scattered embers for two miles. Unlike the Palisades fire, the most difficult stretch of the Eaton fire was fought in the dark with winds requiring all aircraft grounded by 6:45 p.m as the fire was just beginning. This left first responders without an aerial view of the flames, reducing their awareness of the fire direction.

Marrone said they’ve made a National Guard satellite program available to incident command, so fire officials can see the path of a fire on nights when they have no aerial support.

“Like I said before, and this is not an excuse, this was a massive, unprecedented disaster that presented severe challenges,” he said.

Barger also questioned why there was such a delay between when fire officials first noticed the fire was moving west and when the evacuation orders were issued. According to the report, a county fire official in the field in Altadena said they suggested to incident command staff a little before midnight that, due to high winds, evacuation orders should go out for the foothills of Altadena, all the way west to La Cañada Flintridge. About two hours later, at 2:18 a.m., a fire official radioed that they saw fire north of Farnsworth Park moving west along the foothills.

The first evacuation order for west Altadena came at 3:25 a.m.

Marrone said incident command needed to validate the report before requesting the order be sent out.

“That took time — probably too much time in retrospect,” Marrone said.

The former Los Angeles fire chief filed a legal claim against the city Wednesday, alleging that Mayor Karen Bass “orchestrated a campaign of misinformation, defamation, and retaliation” to protect her political image after the most destructive wildfire in city history.

Kristin Crowley and her lawyers accuse Bass of ousting her, and repeatedly defaming Crowley as Bass sought to shift blame for the way the city handled the catastrophic Palisades Fire “while concealing the extent to which she undermined public safety” with cuts to the fire department’s budget.

The legal claim alleges that Bass scapegoated Crowley amid mounting criticism of the mayor’s decision to attend a ceremony in Ghana on Jan. 7, when the fire erupted. Bass left Los Angeles despite her knowing of the potential severe winds and deadly fire danger, the claim alleges.

“As the Fire Chief, for nearly three years, I advocated for the proper funding, staffing and infrastructure upgrades to better support and protect our Firefighters, and by extension, our communities,” Crowley said in a statement to The Times. “The lies, deceit, exaggerations and misrepresentations need to be addressed with the only thing that can refute them — the true facts.”

Bass and the city had yet to respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Crowley’s lawyers say Bass “initially praised the department’s preparedness” and even portrayed the response positively. “But as criticism mounted over her absence, Bass reversed course,” the legal claim said. “She sought to shift blame to Crowley, falsely stating that Bass was not aware of the nationally anticipated weather event, that Crowley sent 1,000 firefighters home who could have fought the blaze, and misrepresenting the department’s budget…”

Bass removed Crowley on Feb. 21, six weeks after the firestorm that consumed Pacific Palisades, killing 12 people and destroying nearly 7,000 homes.

The mayor said she was demoting Crowley for failing to inform her about the dangerous conditions or to activate hundreds of firefighters ahead of the blaze. She also said Crowley rebuffed a request to prepare a report on the fires — a critical part of ongoing investigations into the cause of the fire and the city’s response.

According to her lawyers, Crowley had “repeatedly warned of the LAFD’s worsening resource and staffing crisis,” prior to the fire, and warned that “aging infrastructure, surging emergency calls, and shrinking staff left the city at risk.”

In the 23-page claim, Crowley said Bass cut the department’s operating budget by nearly $18 million that year and “eliminated positions critical to maintaining fire engines, trucks, and ambulances.”

After Crowley complained publicly that the budget cuts had “weakened the department’s readiness, Bass retaliated,” the lawyers allege. On Jan 10, after Crowley told FOX LA, “we are screaming to be properly funded,” Bass called her to the mayor’s office.

“I don’t know why you had to do that; normally we are on the same page, and I don’t know why you had to say stuff to the media,” the lawyers say Bass told the chief, but said she wasn’t fired.

The next day, retired Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva began working at the Emergency Operations Center, donning a Mayor’s office badge. Then Feb. 3, 2025, two weeks before Chief Crowley was removed from her position, Villanueva wrote a Report to the Board of Fire Commissioners identifying himself as Interim Fire Chief” — a position he now holds.

Crowley was eventually ousted and put on leave. Her lawyers allege Bass’s public accusation at the time that Crowley refused to participate in an after action report of the Palisades fire after being asked to by the Fire Commission President Genethia Hayes, a Bass appointee — was blatantly false and she was never asked.

A legal claim is a precursor to a civil lawsuit, and is required by California law when suing a government entity. In her claim, Crowley alleges Bass and her subordinates have conducted a “public smear campaign aimed at discrediting Crowley’s character and decades of service,” following her dismissal.

Crowley’s attorneys, Genie Harrison and Mia Munro, allege that Bass and others in her administration defamed Crowley, retaliated against her in violation of California’s labor code and violated Crowley’s First Amendment rights. Crowley is seeking unspecified damages above $25,000.

Harrison, who has represented numerous victims of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, said Crowley’s claim “presents her extensive advocacy efforts to obtain the funding and resources the LAFD needed to fulfill its public safety mission. It also shows Mayor Bass’ repeated refusals to provide those resources.”

Bass made the assertion about the failed deployment after an investigation by The Times found that Fire Department officials could have ordered about 1,000 firefighters to remain on duty as winds were building but opted against it. The move would have doubled the firefighting force on hand when fire broke out.

But Crowley and her lawyers say in the legal claim the “LAFD did not have sufficient operating emergency vehicles to safely and effectively pre-deploy 1,000 (or anywhere near 1,000) additional firefighters on January 7.” In simple terms, the department did not have the money or personnel “to repair and maintain emergency fire engines, fire trucks, and ambulances,” the claim alleges.

The Times investigation found the department had more than 40 engines available to battle wildfires, but fire officials staffed only five of them.

Crowley’s lawyers dispute that in the claim. They say “the LAFD staffed all its front-line fire engines (including all the 40 engines that Bass later falsely stated sat “idle.”

In January, as wildfires tore through greater Los Angeles, more than 7,500 emergency personnel mobilized — confronting searing heat and extreme winds, trying to contain the devastation.

Among them stood an Olympic gold medalist and a professional soccer champion.

L.A. County firefighters David Walters and Erin Regan, former athletes who were among the 7,500 emergency personnel who responded to the January wildfires in Southern California, earned them this year’s Pat Tillman Award for Service that will be presented at the ESPY Awards.

The award — named after Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety who left the NFL to enlist in the Army following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and was killed in action — celebrates those with deep ties to sports who have served others, embodying Tillman’s legacy.

Years before joining the fire department, Walters helped the U.S. win the 4×200-meter freestyle relay gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games. He swam the lead leg in the preliminaries, helping the team set an Olympic record that paved the way for a world-record win in the final.

During the fires, Walters recounted the exhausting conditions as crews fought blazes that scorched nearly 38,000 acres — claiming the lives of 30 people and destroying homes, businesses and landmarks in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.

“We’re pretty much trying to keep what is left here standing,” Walters told NewsNation. “So we’re not laying down. We’re staying in our position — that’s correct, I did sleep on top of the hose bed last night, just staying ready to do what we can still do.”

Walters told ESPN he is honored to serve Los Angeles.

“This has been a challenging year, but also a rewarding one as we watched the Los Angeles community come together to support their neighbors,” he said in ESPN’s award announcement.

Regan, who joined the department in 2008, once anchored the Washington Freedom to a Women’s United Soccer Assn. title following a stellar goalkeeping career at Wake Forest, where she earned first-team All-ACC honors and broke multiple school records.

Outside of firehouse duties, Regan champions female representation in the fire service. She co-founded Girls’ Fire Camp, a one-day program introducing young girls to firefighting, and launched the Women’s Fire Prep Academy, offering mentorship and hands-on training for aspiring female firefighters.

“My career choice was inspired by my family’s history of public service, so receiving this award is a tribute to the many great influences that shaped my upbringing,” Regan said in ESPN’s award announcement. “As first responders, we take pride in hard work and serving others, and I’m truly humbled to be recognized alongside incredible heroes like Pat Tillman.”

The ESPYs, hosted by comedian Shane Gillis, will air on ABC and stream on ESPN+ on July 16 at 8 p.m. PDT.

A key committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to cut the number of employees targeted for layoff by Mayor Karen Bass by more than half, bringing the total down to an estimated 650.

The council’s budget committee took steps to save more than 1,000 jobs by pursuing an array of cost-cutting measures, such as hiring fewer police officers and scaling back funding for Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people into temporary or permanent housing.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the committee, said those and many other moves would help the city protect core services, including tree trimming, street resurfacing, street light repair and sanitation teams that address illegal dumping.

“We looked for ways to save positions — not for the sake of job counts only, but to make sure the departments can still do the work our constituents need them to do for their quality of life,” said Yaroslavsky, who represents part of the Westside.

The committee’s recommendations for the proposed 2025-26 budget now head to the full council, which is scheduled to take them up on Thursday.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who sits on the committee, expressed some optimism after the vote.

“We were in very rough waters, and a very different landscape, when we started this process,” said Hernandez, who represents part of the Eastside. “And now there seems to be some light between the clouds.”

As part of Friday’s deliberations, the budget committee voted to recommend a slowdown in sworn hiring at the LAPD, which would leave the agency with 8,400 officers by June 30, 2026. That represents a reduction of about 300 from the current fiscal year and 1,600 compared with 2020.

The budget committee also agreed to eliminate 42 emergency incident technicians at the fire department, a move opposed by interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva, while also canceling Bass’ plan for a new homelessness unit within that agency.

In addition, the five-member panel recommended a hike in parking meter fees, which is expected to generate $14 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

Yaroslavsky said the changes endorsed by the budget committee on Friday would save about 150 civilian workers in the police department.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, who advises the council, said she believes that city officials will keep finding ways to reduce the number of layoffs, by transferring workers to vacant city positions or to agencies that are unaffected by the budget crisis, such as Los Angeles World Airports and the Port of Los Angeles.

“I think we’re going to be able to truly get that number down to less than 500,” she told the committee.

Bass, faced with a nearly $1-billion shortfall, released a proposed budget last month that called for the layoff of about 1,600 employees, a fourth of them civilian workers at the LAPD. Some of the largest reductions were planned at agencies that handle sanitation, street repairs and maintenance of city facilities.

Friday’s deliberations set the stage for many positions to remain intact, particularly at the Department of City Planning, which had been facing 115 layoffs. Kevin Keller, executive officer with that agency, said the committee found the funding to restore more than 100 of those positions.

“I know there’s a lot of city workers that are breathing a big sigh of relief tonight,” said Roy Samaan, president of the Engineers and Architects Assn., whose union represents planning department employees.

L.A.’s budget crisis has been attributed to a number of factors, including rapidly rising legal payouts, lower-than-expected tax revenue and a package of raises for the city workforce that is expected to add $250 million to the upcoming budget, which goes into effect on July 1.

Bass and the council have been hoping to persuade city labor unions to provide financial concessions that would help avoid more cuts. So far, no deals have been struck.

On Friday, before the committee began its deliberations, Bass said she is optimistic about avoiding layoffs entirely. At the same time, she spoke against a budget strategy that pits the hiring of police officers against the preservation of other jobs, calling it “a Sophie’s Choice.”

If the LAPD slows down hiring, it will have fewer officers in the run-up to next year’s hosting of the World Cup, she said.

“I’m not going accept that as my choice,” she said.

During the final minutes of Friday’s five-hour meeting, council members made some last-minute restorations, identifying additional funds for youth programs, tree trimming and fire department mechanics. Hernandez pushed for the committee to restore $1 million for Represent LA, which provides legal defense of immigrants facing deportation or other enforcement actions, and $500,000 for graffiti paint-out crews.

Hernandez said the city needs to stand by immigrants amid a harsh federal crackdown. And she described graffiti removal as crucial for public safety in her district.

“Getting graffiti down quickly prevents a lot more people from getting shot, prevents them from getting killed,” she said.

To Los Angeles City Council members searching desperately for cuts amid a budget crisis, the Fire Department’s emergency incident technicians are “drivers” whose main role is chauffeuring battalion chiefs to emergencies.

But LAFD officials say the position is much more than that. Emergency incident technicians are firefighters who play a key role in coordinating the response to fires, and losing them would put lives at risk, according to LAFD interim Chief Ronnie Villanueva.

“This is going to come back and bite us. This is not a matter of them just being a driver. It is not a driver. You have to just take that out of your minds of transporting someone somewhere,” Villanueva said, addressing the City Council’s budget committee at a hearing on Thursday.

Five months after the Palisades fire destroyed thousands of homes and prompted questions about whether the Fire Department was equipped to fight such a massive blaze, the budget committee moved forward with a recommendation to cut the emergency incident technician positions.

Of the 42 positions, 27 are currently filled. Those firefighters would not lose their jobs but would be reassigned, saving the city more than $7 million in the next fiscal year and about $10 million every year after that, according to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo.

The city is facing a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall largely due to rising personnel costs, soaring legal payouts and a slowdown in the local economy. Mayor Karen Bass’ 2025-26 budget proposal, which suggested laying off more than 1,600 city employees, did not include reassigning the emergency incident technicians.

The budget committee, which stressed that the overall Fire Department budget is increasing, also recommended nixing Bass’ plan for creating a new unit within the department that would have added 67 employees to address issues stemming from the homelessness crisis.

At Thursday’s budget hearing, Councilmember Tim McOsker, who has two children who are firefighters, argued for cutting the emergency incident technician position, calling it “basically an aide.”

When Villanueva asked McOsker to put a cost on a firefighter’s life, McOsker said, “Invaluable.”

“I can say the same thing about very many of the 1,300 positions we’re cutting, because we’re also going to not be doing sidewalks, streets, curbs, gutters, tree trimming, changing out lights, making our communities safe,” McOsker added. “The reality is we have to balance a budget.”

The budget committee has sent its initial recommendations to Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, the City Council’s top policy advisor, who on Friday will present the committee with a full menu of strategies for cutting costs while preserving as many services as possible. The committee is then expected to finalize its recommendations and send the proposed budget to the full council, which must approve a final budget by the end of the month.

On the way to a scene, a “command team” consisting of a chief and an emergency incident technician “might be responsible to provide direction to the rescue of a trapped firefighter or civilians, firefighter tracking, and handle the risk management of a rapidly escalating incident,” Capt. Erik Scott, an LAFD spokesperson, said in a statement.

“The more complex the incident, the greater the need for Emergency Incident Technicians to facilitate emergency incident mitigation,” Scott added, with the types of incidents including “structure fires, brush fires, multi-casualty incidents, earthquakes, train collisions, building collapses, active shooter, airport and port emergencies etc.”

Gregg Avery, who retired last year as a battalion chief after 37 years with the LAFD, said that during his career, emergency incident technicians were called aides, then staff assistants. But Avery thought of them more as partners. The four EITs who worked for him often helped him with strategic decisions, and he encouraged them to question his decisions and offer advice.

“The EIT happens to drive the car. But to call them a driver is a bit demeaning and a bit minimizing,” he said.

While an EIT drives a battalion chief to a fire or other emergency, both work the radios to develop strategies for tackling the situation, according to Avery and a video produced by the LAFD. They communicate with fire commanders, firefighters on the scene, police officers and agencies such as the Department of Water and Power and the U.S. Forest Service.

At the scene, they work with the incident commander to keep track of firefighters and other personnel — a crucial role in chaotic situations when forgetting a single firefighter’s location could be fatal, both Villanueva and Avery said.

But at the Thursday budget hearing, Villanueva struggled to articulate what EITs do when they aren’t responding to scenes.

“They visit fire stations and they deliver mail. They talk about the current events. If there’s any questions they need to be asked … the EIT will assist with those. They do staffing,” Villanueva said.

According to Avery, EITs act as liaisons between firefighters and battalion chiefs. Since they are firefighters themselves and members of the labor union, they can relate to the rank-and-file, Avery said.

The EIT positions were cut once before — in 2010, during another major budget crunch in the Great Recession. Since then, the department has been adding them back.

Avery remembers working without an EIT after the cuts.

“Emergency operations were profoundly different and not as good,” he said.