Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore admitted Tuesday that the department’s after-action report on the Palisades fire was watered down to shield top brass from scrutiny.
The admission comes more than two weeks after The Times found that the report was edited to downplay the failures of city and LAFD leadership in preparing for and fighting the Jan. 7, 2025, fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
The Times also reported that the author of the report declined to endorse it because of substantial deletions that altered his findings, calling the edited version “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”
“It is now clear that multiple drafts were edited to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership in that final report,” Moore said Tuesday during remarks before the city’s Board of Fire Commissioners. “This editing occurred prior to my appointment as fire chief. And I can assure you that nothing of this sort will ever again happen while I am fire chief.”
Moore, who was appointed fire chief in November, did not say who was responsible for the changes to the report.
The LAFD was led by interim chief Ronnie Villanueva after Mayor Karen Bass ousted Kristin Crowley less than two months after the fire.
Firefighters battle the Palisades fire on El Medio Avenue in Pacific Palisades last year.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The chief’s comments, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Palisades fire, were the strongest admission yet of missteps by department leaders.
Among the changes to the report were substantial adjustments to how the department’s pre-deployment decisions were described. The first draft of the after-action report said that the department’s decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy available firefighters ahead of the ferocious winds “did not align” with policy. The final version said the number of companies pre-deployed “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”
“This is about learning and not assigning blame,” said Fire Commissioner Sharon Delugach, who praised the chief for his comments.
Along with acknowledging the changes to the report, Moore also said the city failed to adequately ensure that the Jan. 1, 2025, Lachman fire was fully snuffed out. That fire reignited into the Palisades fire six days later.
Moore said the department “genuinely believed the fire was fully extinguished.”
“That was based on the information, conditions and procedures in place at that moment. That belief guided the operational decision-making that was made,” he said. “However, the outcome has made it incredibly clear that our mop-up and verification process needed to be stronger.”
“We have to own that, and I do,” he added.
The admissions amounted to an about-face for a chief who in November critiqued the media following a Times report that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the Lachman fire burn area even though some LAFD members had complained that the ground was still smoldering.
“Something that’s been very frustrating for me as fire chief, and through this process, is to watch my friends in the media smear our name and the work that our firefighters did to combat one of the most intense fires, the Palisades, the wind-driven monstrosity that it was,” he said at his first Fire Commission meeting as chief.
