At a news conference, Mayor Karen Bass said she and the fire chief, who claimed the city had not sufficiently funded the Fire Department, were in “lock step.”

After a meeting so long that Mayor Karen Bass missed her Friday night media briefing on the crisis, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley emerged still in the job despite blaming the administration's budget cuts for the failure to contain the raging wildfires.

Kristin Crowley was elevated to Los Angeles fire chief in 2022 at a time of department turmoil. As a career firefighter, she was portrayed by the then-mayor as a stabilizing force.

Kristin Crowley was elevated to Los Angeles fire chief in 2022 at a time of turmoil in a department consumed by complaints of rampant hazing, harassment and discrimination among its 3,400-member ranks.

The mayor of Los Angeles is denying a Friday night “exclusive” report that she fired the city’s fire chief at a closed-door meeting earlier in the day. The pushback from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass came after a Daily Mail article hit Friday evening and,