Kristin Crowley, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department said the city of Los Angeles was abandoning its more than 100,000 displaced residents, who were forced to evacuate due to the ongoing wildfires.
When asked by Fox News’ affiliate KTTV whether the city of Los Angeles and Mayor Karen Bass have failed the city, Crowley replied, “Yes.”
Crowley said an urgent staffing shortage affected the department’s response time when the fire began sweeping through Los Angeles.
“Any cuts will impact our ability to provide service,” she said. “That’s a fundamental truth about our assets. If there are cuts, we had to source from somewhere else. What does that mean? That doesn’t happen or that there are delays.”
LA FIRE RAISES ALARM ABOUT BUDGET CUTS AFFECTING RESPONSE TO WILDFIRE: MEMO
Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley speaks during a press conference at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the West Carson neighborhood of Los Angeles on Thursday, February 15, 2024. (Richard Vogel/AP)
Crowley said staff shortages and lack of resources are a pressing issue opposite the department for years. She pointed to a series of memos she sent to the city detailing the department’s needs.
“Since day one, we have identified huge gaps in our service delivery and our ability for our fire boots on the ground to do their job since day one,” she said. “This is my third budget as we enter the 2025-2026 period, and I can tell you that we are still understaffed, we are still under-resourced and we are still under-funded.”
When asked about the cuts, which reduced the budget by $17,553,814 from $837,191,237 to $819,637,423, Crowley said they “did have an impact on our ability to provide service.”
“On a normal day, our firefighters respond to more than 1,500 calls, and that’s true transport of 650 patients per day – let alone the last three days of what we’ve had,” she said.
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The problems facing the fire department “are not a new problem,” Crowley told the local outlet.
“The number of calls our firefighters respond to today has doubled since 2010, an increase of 55% with 68 fewer people. Complete transparency. This is not a new problem for us,” she said. “Since the three years that I have been in office, I have been sounding the alarm to say that we need more.”
We are crying out for adequate funding to ensure our firefighters can do their jobs…
“This is no longer sustainable. So we are now in a position to do that be well financedshe said. “We are crying out for adequate funding to ensure our firefighters can do their jobs so we can serve the community.”
A firefighter battles fire during Eaton fire on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 in Altadena, CA. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Crowley said the department has identified service gaps and sent recommendations to the city.
“We know we need 62 new fire stations. We need to double the size of our firefighters. The growth of this city since 1960 has doubled and we have fewer fire stations,” she said.
PHOTO GALLERY: PALISADES FIRE BEFORE AND AFTER
“So when you’re talking about sounding the alarm and requesting and requesting budgets that are easily justified based on the data, real data shows what the fire service needs to serve this beautiful city and the beautiful community of which we swore we would. that’s about,” she said.
From the heart, Crowley said, “None of us in the fire service are politicians.”
“Firefighters are here first and foremost to serve. Again: none of us in the fire service are politicians. We are civil servants first,” she said. “We took an oath to serve the public, before ourselves and even before our families.”
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“So with that, I want to focus on the path forward. I want to focus on what the LAFD needs,” Crowley said. “What our people need to do their jobs is to ensure that we can save lives and protect property with the greatest possible capacity.”
“But we need to be appropriately funded,” she said. “And that’s where my head is.”
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
