Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is once again under scrutiny over the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire after newly surfaced emails suggest City Hall not only softened the official after-action report but also stage-managed how the Los Angeles Fire Department spoke about the catastrophe.
The blaze torched nearly 7,000 homes and spawned a 92-page draft assessment that bluntly blamed thin staffing and sluggish pre-deployment for the devastation. By the time the public saw the report in January, 22 pages were gone, entire chapter titles were rewritten and the drafts admission that firefighters were unprepared for a wind-driven vegetation fire had been replaced with language praising the departments balanced approach.
The California Post, which obtained both versions, says the initial summary even noted the mayors office ordered the reviewa reference that conveniently vanished from the final document. The New York Post now reports that leaked correspondence backs up suspicions that Basss team leaned on LAFD brass to keep the rollout tightly scripted, erasing the toughest criticism before the public ever saw it.
According to the Los Angeles Times, a fire department aide warned the mayors staff that additional interviews with the chief could invite a high volume of challenging questions and would proceed only with Basss blessing. That same message chain shows staffers discussing which reporters would get access and how to describe the reports edits, reinforcing the perception that the mayor prioritized optics over transparency while residents were still rebuilding.
Basss communications director Yusef Robb insists the outrage is overblown, arguing that the mayor routinely coordinates with every department and would never hide information about a tragedy she has publicly decried for more than a year. But critics note that the biggest edits all benefited City Hall, stripping out acknowledgments that cost-cutting left crews short-handed during a red-flag wind event and muting references to the mayors fingerprints on the review.
With wildfire risk already spiking again this winter, state Republicans are demanding an independent investigation into how the report was watered down and whether Angelenos were misled about their citys readiness. For Bass, the episode revives the same trust issues that once dogged her in Congress: a reflex to control the narrative, even when sunlight is what her constituents are begging for.
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