For Bass and the LAFD, no hiding from missteps

By watering down Palisades report, Fire Department shows it can't investigate itself

- STEVE LOPEZ COLUMNIST

ALLEN J. SCHABEN Los Angeles Times

L.A. MAYOR Karen Bass admitted that "both sides botched it" in the Eaton and Palisades fires.

The year was already a debacle for the Los Angeles Fire Department and Mayor Karen Bass, with multiple stumbles before and after the epic January blaze that obliterated Pacific Palisades, so it was hard to imagine that things could get worse in the closing days of 2025.

But they have.

A blistering Times investigation found that the Fire Department cleaned up its after-action report, downplaying missteps.

In other words, there was a blatant attempt to mislead the public.

And Bass representatives said they requested that her comments in the final minutes of a video interview — in which she admitted that “both sides botched it” in the Eaton and Palisades fires — be edited out because she thought the interview had ended.

Please.

Together, these developments will echo through the coming mayoral election, in which Bass will be called out repeatedly over one of the greatest disasters in L.A. history.

We're a long way from knowing whether she can survive and win a second term, but Austin Beutner and any other legitimate contenders are being handed gifts that will Inthe case ofthe altered report, kudos to Times reporters Alene Tchekmedyian and Paul Pringle, who have beentryingall year to keep the LAFD honest, which is no easy task.

In the latest bombshell dropped by the two reporters, they dug up seven drafts ofthe department's self-analysis, or after-action report, and found that it had been altered multiple times to soften damning conclusions.