palisades fire

The Los Angeles Fire Department is requesting a budget of more than $1 billion for the coming year, arguing that the additional funding is necessary to be prepared for wildfires like the one that devastated Pacific Palisades in January.

The request, which represents a more than 15% increase over this year’s budget, includes money for 179 new firefighting recruits and a second crew dedicated to fighting wildfires, as well as helitanker services to battle fires from the air.

In the immediate aftermath of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, top LAFD officials blamed a lack of resources and extraordinarily high winds for their failures in combating the flames.

United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, the union that represents the city’s firefighters, has long argued that the department is severely underfunded and is pushing for a half-cent sales tax that, if approved by voters, would generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Fire Chief Jaime Moore, who was appointed to his post earlier this month, wrote in a memo to the Board of Fire Commissioners last Friday that “the proposed budget will reinforce and accelerate operational enhancements implemented following the devastating Palisades wind-driven vegetation fire in January 2025.”

Moore’s request is the first step in a lengthy process to hammer out a city budget that requires approval by the City Council and the mayor. This year, the city had to close a nearly $1-billion shortfall caused largely by rising personnel costs, soaring legal payouts and a slowdown in the local economy.

City department heads often request amounts far higher than they eventually receive. With the city still in a budget crunch, the outlook for the LAFD’s request is unclear.

“The budget process is in its early stages. Reforms must continue to be implemented at the department and Mayor Bass looks forward to working with Chief Moore to strengthen the city’s emergency preparedness,” said Clara Karger, a spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass.

Genethia Hudley Hayes, who heads the civilian Board of Fire Commissioners, said Tuesday that she had not yet seen the request but that she generally supports a 15% increase in the LAFD budget.

“We need it,” she said. “The smart thing would be to let the public know what you are going to do with that money.”

In the days leading up to Jan. 7, LAFD officials decided not to order firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift — which would have required paying them overtime — and staffed just a few of the more than 40 engines available to aid in battling wildfires, despite warnings of life-threatening winds, a Times investigation found.

Then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said that commanders had to be strategic with limited resources while continuing to handle regular 911 calls.

An LAFD after-action report released last month cited “financial constraints” as a factor in pre-deployment decisions.

The Times also found that an LAFD battalion chief ordered firefighters to leave the site of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, despite firefighters’ complaints that the ground was still smoldering. That fire later reignited into the Palisades fire.

Moore’s budget memo tied many of his requests to the Palisades fire.

The second wildland hand crew, which would include 32 positions for $2 million, would supplement a hand crew formed this year, after the Palisades fire. The crew’s 26 recruits, who are trained in wildfire fighting and management, establish fire lines to stop flames from spreading. Throughout the year, they do brush clearance around the city.

The helitanker lease, costing slightly less than $1 million, would support aerial attacks of flames that are difficult for crews on the ground to reach.

Moore’s budget request includes the reinstatement of the LAFD’s emergency incident technicians, who help coordinate responses to fires — positions that were cut in the last budget cycle. The after-action report described the LAFD’s disorganized response to the Palisades fire, citing major issues with staffing and communications.

In the fire’s aftermath, the LAFD’s budget was a subject of public debate, with some saying that Bass had reduced it. The 2024-25 budget actually increased slightly after firefighters received raises and the city invested in new firetrucks and other purchases. The budget increased again in 2025-2026.

Bass said she has committed additional resources to the Fire Department in each year she has been mayor.

The half-cent sales tax proposed by the firefighters union would go before city voters as a ballot measure next November.

By 2050, the sales tax would raise at least $9.8 billion, funding at least 30 new fire stations and new fire trucks, as well as adding 1,400 Fire Department employees, according Doug Coates, the acting president of UFLAC, and Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes Pacific Palisades.

On his second day as chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, Jaime Moore criticized what he called media efforts to “smear” firefighters who responded to the worst wildfire in city history.

Moore’s comments Tuesday appeared to be in reference to a Times report that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which days later reignited into the deadly Palisades fire, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering.

The Times reviewed text messages between firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the Palisades fire, indicating that crews had expressed concerns that the Lachman fire would reignite if left unprotected.

“The audacity for people to make comments and say that there’s text messages out there that say that we did not put the fire out, that we did not extinguish the fire,” Moore told the Board of Fire Commissioners. “Yet I have yet to see any of those text messages.”

Moore’s statements represented a dramatic shift from his comments last week, when he told the L.A. City Council’s public safety committee — two days before the full council approved his appointment as chief — that the reports had generated an “understandable mistrust” of the fire department.

“The most alarming thing to me is … our members were not listened to, or they were not heard,” he said last Wednesday.

In response to Mayor Karen Bass’ request that he investigate the department’s missteps during the Lachman fire, Moore had called for an outside organization to conduct the probe.

On Tuesday, he said he would review LAFD’s response to the Lachman fire, though he did not specify who would conduct the investigation.

“I will do as Mayor Bass asked, and I will look into the Lachman fire, and we will look at how that was handled, and we will learn from it, and we’ll be better from it,” he said.

In one text message reviewed by The Times, a firefighter who was at the Lachman scene Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief in charge had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of visible signs of smoldering terrain.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And another firefighter said in more recent texts that crew members were upset when directed to leave the scene, but that they could not ignore orders.

The firefighters’ accounts line up with a video recorded by a hiker above Skull Rock Trailhead late in the morning Jan. 2 — almost 36 hours after the Lachman fire started — that shows smoke rising from the dirt. “It’s still smoldering,” the hiker says from behind the camera.

At least one battalion chief assigned to LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, The Times found. But the department did not include that finding, or any detailed examination of the reignition, in its after-action report on the Jan. 7 Palisades fire — or otherwise make the information public — despite victims demanding answers for months about how the blaze started and whether more could have been done to prevent it.

Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, told the City Council on Friday that one of his top priorities is raising morale in a department that has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

In January, The Times reported that LAFD officials decided not to pre-deploy any engines or firefighters to the Palisades — as they had done in the past — despite being warned that some of the most dangerous winds in recent years were headed for the region.

The LAFD after-action report released last month described fire officials’ chaotic response, which was plagued by major staffing and communication issues, as the massive blaze overwhelmed them.

After Bass ousted Fire Chief Kristin Crowley over her handling of the Palisades fire, the department was led by interim Chief Ronnie Villanueva until Moore took over Monday.

Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, which provides civilian oversight for the fire department, said at Tuesday’s meeting that she had not seen the text messages quoted in The Times. Because she hadn’t seen them, she said, the messages have “no bearing on the work of the fire commission.”

She also said that the commission supported the fire department’s after-action report, noting that that the report was not about the rekindling of the Lachman fire, but about the first 72 hours of the department’s response to the Palisades fire.

“It has nothing to do and should not have had anything to do with the Lachman fire, because that is not what we asked for,” Hudley Hayes said.

As Jaime Moore prepares to take the helm of the Los Angeles Fire Department, he said he plans to commission an outside investigation into missteps by fire officials during the mop-up of a small brush fire that reignited days later into the destructive Palisades fire.

Mayor Karen Bass had requested a probe late last month in response to reporting by The Times that firefighters were ordered to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering.

Moore — a 30-year department veteran whose appointment was confirmed Friday by the Los Angeles City Council — said the reports have generated “understandable mistrust” in the agency.

The Times found that at least one chief assigned to LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, but that the department kept that information hidden despite Palisades fire victims pleading for answers about whether more could have been done to protect their community.

On Wednesday, Moore told the council’s public safety committee that bringing in an outside organization to investigate the LAFD’s handling of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire would be one of his first moves as chief.

“Transparency and accountability are vital to ensure that we learn from every incident and is essential if we are to restore confidence in our Fire Department,” Moore said. “As fire chief, I will focus on rebuilding trust, not just with the public, but within the LAFD itself.”

Federal investigators say the Lachman fire was deliberately set on New Years’ Day and burned underground in a canyon root system until it was rekindled by high winds on Jan. 7. LAFD officials have said they believed the earlier fire was fully extinguished.

Moore said one of his top priorities is raising morale in a department that has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the worst wildfire in city history, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

In the days after the Jan. 7 Palisades fire, The Times reported that LAFD decided not to pre-deploy any engines or firefighters to the Palisades — as they had done in the past — despite being warned that some of the most dangerous winds in recent years were headed for the region.

An LAFD after-action report released last month described fire officials’ chaotic response, which included major staffing and communication issues.

Moore — who has the backing of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the union that represents firefighters — said his other priorities include better preparation for major disasters, with a focus on pre-deployment and staffing, as well as for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.

“I’ve got skin in the game,” he said, adding that his son is an LAFD firefighter. “We need to address the amount of calls they’re going on, and make sure that they’re going on the right calls with the right resources, and if that means us having to change our department model, so be it. I have the courage to do that.”

He also said he wants to expand the LAFD’s technological capabilities and better deploy the equipment it already has, like the thermal imaging cameras and heat-detecting drones that officials did not deploy during the Lachman fire mop-up.

“We are now requiring them to be used, and we’re not picking up any type of hose until we know that we’ve been able to identify through the use of the drone, thermal imaging cameras to ensure that those surface hot spots are all taken care of,” he said.

“I wish it didn’t take this for us to have to learn the lesson about using the tools we already have,” Councilmember Traci Park replied.

Park grilled Moore on reporting by The Times that firefighters warned a battalion chief about the Lachman fire not being fully extinguished.

“We know now that our own firefighters on the ground were offering warnings that it was still too hot, that it was still too smoldering,” Park said. “For Palisades residents and Angelenos across the city who have questions and concerns, what would you say to them at this point?”

Moore referred back to independent investigation he plans to launch.

“I want to know why it happened, how it happened, and take the necessary steps to ensure that never happens again,” he said.

The Times reviewed text messages among firefighters and a third party that indicated crews had expressed concerns that the Lachman fire would reignite if left unprotected. The exchanges occurred in the weeks and months after the Palisades fire.

In one text message, a firefighter who was at the Lachman scene Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief in charge had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of visible signs of smoldering terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And another said in texts last month that crew members were upset when directed to leave the scene, but that they could not ignore orders.

The firefighters’ accounts line up with a video recorded by a hiker above Skull Rock Trailhead late in the morning on Jan. 2 — almost 36 hours after the Lachman fire started — that shows smoke rising from the dirt. “It’s still smoldering,” the hiker says from behind the camera.

A federal grand jury subpoena was served on the LAFD for firefighters’ communications, including text messages, about smoke or hot spots in the area of the Lachman fire, according to an LAFD memo. It is unclear if the subpoena is directly related to the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, who is accused of setting the Jan. 1 fire and has pleaded not guilty.

Complaints that the city and state failed to properly prepare for and respond to the Palisades fire are the subject of numerous lawsuits and a Republican-led inquiry by a U.S. Senate committee.

In addition to the pre-deployment issue, the LAFD’s after-action report found other problems during the Jan. 7 fire fight. The initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27. Confusion over which radio channel to use hampered communication. At one point in the first hour, three L.A. County engines showed up requesting an assignment, and received no reply. Another four LAFD engines assembled, but waited 20 minutes without an assignment. In the early afternoon that day, the staging area — where engines were checking in — was overrun by fire.

Moore said he is closely evaluating the 42 recommendations in the report to make sure they are properly implemented.

Bass announced Moore’s selection last month after conducting a nationwide search that included interviews with fire chiefs of other cities. She had ousted Kristen Crowley, who was chief during the Palisades fire, citing deployment decisions ahead of the extreme weather, and appointed interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva in February.

Moore — who said he grew up in the Mar Vista and Venice area — joined the LAFD as a firefighter in 1995, working his way up the ranks in various assignments throughout the city, including supervising arson investigations and serving as a spokesperson for the agency, according to his resume. He most recently was deputy chief of Operations Valley Bureau, directing the response to emergencies across 39 fire stations.