Mayor Karen Bass and her DEI hires at the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) were caught red-handed covering up their and the state's response to the deadly and devastating Palisades Fire by changing or erasing the records in the city's official after-action report. The deletions and distortions were so severe that the author of the after-action report requested that his name be removed from the publication.
The cover-up and retconning of the report, however, will never cover up the 12 deaths, thousands of lives upended, billions lost, and thousands of homes and businesses wiped out by that Palisades firestorm on Jan. 7, 2025.
Bass's office and the leadership at the LAFD removed, erased, and excised information that "implicated the state's" role and the city's botched preparation and response to the Lachman Fire and the state's standing orders to allow those fires to burn themselves out. Unfortunately, the Palisades was in the way, as I reported in Bombshell Texts Reveal L.A. Fire Brass Knew Fire That Burned Down Palisades Wasn't Out.
A man is locked up awaiting trial in federal court for allegedly setting that fire.
Planned: SHOCK DOCS: Gavin Newsom's Secret LET IT BURN Enviro Rules Led to Palisades Fire Catastrophe
L.A. Fire and city brass left out the part of the story where they chose not to pre-deploy and fully staff-up for the fire. They rewrote "that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast 'did not align' with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days" to "the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire 'went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.'”
Oh, it was that old "pre-deployment matrix" snafu again, so we guess things are just fine.
An email from the author of the original report, castigating the city's response, was left on the cutting room floor in the final report. Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook told the interim fire chief that changing his conclusions was “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”
Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook emailed then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva and other LAFD officials with the subject line “Palisades AARR Non-Endorsement,” about an hour after the highly anticipated report was made public Oct. 8.
“Having reviewed the revised version submitted by your office, I must respectfully decline to endorse it in its current form,” Cook wrote in the email obtained by The Times. “The document has undergone substantial modifications and contains significant deletions of information that, in some instances, alter the conclusions originally presented.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that the city removed 32 after-action recommendations and "lessons learned" from the original report. The original report included 74 recommendations, and the redacted report included only 42. The LA city brass even changed photos and names of mistakes to make their response look less incompetent.
Lost Forever: How Much Art Went Up in Smoke in the LA Fires? Billions Worth.
The changes were George Orwell-worthy.
A section on “failures” was renamed “primary challenges,” and an item saying that crews and leaders had violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched.
Another passage that was deleted said that some crews waited more than an hour for an assignment the day of the fire.
Two drafts contain notes typed in the margins with suggestions that seemed intended to soften the report’s effect and make the Fire Department look good. One note proposed replacing the image on the cover page — which showed palm trees on fire against an orange sky — with a “positive” one, such as “firefighters on the frontline.” The final report’s cover displays the LAFD seal.
But there were even more substantive and serious items left out.
Former LAFD Assistant Chief Patrick Butler, who is now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, agreed that the Lachman fire should have been addressed in the report and said the deletions were “a deliberate effort to hide the truth and cover up the facts.”
He said the removal of the reference to the LAFD’s violations of the national Standard Firefighting Orders and Watchouts was a “serious issue” because they were “written in the blood” of firefighters killed in the line of duty. Without citing the national guidelines, the final report said that the Palisades fire’s extraordinary nature “occasionally caused officers and firefighters to think and operate beyond standard safety protocols.”
There are lies of commission and lies of omission. Both are bad.
Incompetence: 'Lack of Leadership': L.A. Fire Vet Says No One Prepared Even After Extreme Wind Warnings
Former MTV reality TV actor Spencer Pratt, who now owns a charred lot in the Palisades where his home used to be, said he told the Los Angeles Times newspaper that the original report was changed weeks ago.
I had the original LAFD report back in October, and I told the LA Times…now, 2 months later, they’re finally reporting on it, but pretending it’s their scoop! You’re welcome, guys! Better late than never? pic.twitter.com/lYsLr3fk5I
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) December 23, 2025
Things were so bad in the first report that Mayor Karen Bass's LAFD staff put together a crisis management team to parry the complaints. In the end, however, they apparently figured it was easier to lie and obfuscate.
Bass is running for re-election, and she'll probably win.
The candidate who ran against her and lost, Palisades developer Rick Caruso, called the cover-up of the original report "despicable," from a mayor's office that is suffused with a "culture of corruption."
It is a cover-up.
— Rick J. Caruso (@RickCarusoLA) December 23, 2025
Investigative reporting from the @latimes exposes the redrafting of the official After-Action Report of the Los Angeles Fire Department to hide failures and mistakes before releasing it to the public.
Major changes were made to cover up failures. Los Angeles… pic.twitter.com/KLDikBAogm
Caruso's concrete-based buildings at his Palisades shopping complex withstood the firestorm. He also pre-deployed his own firefighters and water tenders to keep flames at bay.
Imagine that.
His crews even helped out LAFD when they finally arrived and found empty fire hydrants.
One of these people is not like the other.
Will L.A. learn the difference?
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