LAFD chief slams media

After two days in job, Moore shifts focus to what he says is effort to 'smear' firefighters.

- ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN AND NOAH GOLDBERG

JAIME MOORE said he has not seen messages regarding handling of Jan. 1 fire.

GENARO MOLINA Los Angeles Times

In the immediate aftermath of the Palisades fire, top Los Angeles Fire Department officials blamed a lack of resources and extraordinarily high winds for their failures in combating the flames.

Now, newly appointed Fire Chief Jaime Moore has shifted his focus toward what he called media efforts to "smear" firefighters, a stance that raises questions about who will hold the Fire Department accountable for its mistakes and whether fire victims will get answers about how the blaze started and if more could have been done to prevent it.

Moore's comments Tuesday appeared to be in reference to a Times report that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which days later reignited into the deadly Palisades fire, even though they 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 Board of Fire Commissioners meeting as chief.

Last Wednesday, speaking before City Council members who would vote on his appointment, Moore called for an outside investigation into the issues raised by The Times, which reviewed text messages from firefighters describing concerns from crews on the ground that the Lachman fire would flare up again.

Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, said the Times report had generated an “understandable mistrust" of the Fire Department.

"The most alarming thing to me is... our members were not listened to, or they were not heard," he said then.