Mayor Karen Bass was the “ultimate authority” overseeing the Los Angeles Fire Department’s media messaging following an after-action report on the catastrophic Palisades Fire, according to a report published Friday — though a mayoral adviser told City News Service that Bass did nothing inappropriate or deceptive regarding the rollout of the report.
The Los Angeles Times, in an article published Friday, said Bass took charge of how to respond to a deluge of media inquiries to the LAFD in October 2025, after it was learned the January 2025 Palisades inferno was caused by the rekindling of a smaller arson fire days earlier.
The assertion in Friday’s Times story was based on an internal email the paper said it reviewed, and was separate from information in a Times story last week that said Bass had directed changes to the after-action report over concerns about legal liabilities — which Bass denied last week.
In Friday’s story, the Times wrote that the “carefully coordinated approach” led by Bass in October 2025 also involved the release of the Palisades Fire after-action report after federal prosecutors announced the part played in the wildfire by the smaller fire. The LAFD was facing criticism for not fully extinguishing the earlier blaze.
The email discussed in the Friday Times story is an Oct. 9 email from LAFD spokesperson Capt. Erik Scott to a Bass aide, then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva and others.
“Any additional interviews with the Fire Chief would likely depend on the Mayor’s guidance,” Scott wrote, according to the newspaper. “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.”
Last week, Bass denied a story published in The Times in which unnamed sources said she directed changes to the after-action report over concerns about legal liabilities.
The Times last week said sources told the paper that two people close to Bass informed the sources of the mayor’s alleged role in “watering down” the report, which was meant to spell out mistakes and to suggest measures to avoid repeating them.
Bass last week called the Times story “completely fabricated,” adding, “There was no cover-up on my part. There was absolutely no reason or desire that I would want to water down this report.
“I do not have the technical expertise to make any sort of substantive changes to anything,” Bass added.
Friday, in a message to City News Service regarding the most recent Times report, Yusef Robb, an adviser to the mayor, emphasized that Bass was engaged with the LAFD’s rollout of the report just as she would be with major issues involving any city department.
“From Animal Services to the Zoo, the Mayor’s Office is in contact with every city department on issues large and small, and so obviously and appropriately the Mayor’s Office engaged with LAFD about the rollout of the after-action report,” Robb said.
“Mayor Bass has been vocal and clear for more than a year about the deep concerns she has had about pre-deployment and other major issues. Mayor Bass is the one who ordered the after-action report, going so far as to fire the previous fire chief who refused to do the report.”
Alleged revisions that downplayed failures by the city and the LAFD in handling the disaster were first reported in a Times investigation published in December.
In one instance, according to the Times, LAFD officials removed language from a section of the report labeled “failures,” saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of a forecast of dangerously high winds “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.
The Times wrote Friday that the final report stated that the LAFD “balanced fiscal responsibility with proper preparation for predicted weather.”
Elsewhere, the report said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix,” the paper said.
That passage in the “failures” section, which was renamed “primary challenges,” was being revised by LAFD officials up until at least two days before the report was released on Oct. 8, according to emails reviewed by the Times.