By FireRescue1 Staff
LOS ANGELES — With fires raging across Los Angeles County, news that the Los Angeles Fire Department chief pushed back on recent fire department budget cuts is resurfacing online.
LAFD Fire Chief Kristin Crowley wrote in a memo Dec. 4, 2024, that “the reduction ... has severely limited the department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.”
Crowley’s memo followed news of a nearly $18 million fire department budget reduction, which was approved by Mayor Karen Bass. According to NBC Los Angeles, “the budget reduction was mostly absorbed by leaving many administrative jobs at the fire department unfilled, but that left about $7 million that had to be cut from its overtime budget – which was earmarked for training, fire prevention, and other key functions.”
With discussion about the budget cuts heating up amid the current emergencies unfolding across the county, Mayor Bass responded on Wednesday evening, stating the budget cuts did not impact the LAFD’s response to these particular fires, including the 15,000-acre Palisades Fire.
Crowley’s memo was presented last month to a panel of mayoral appointees who oversee management of the fire department. The memo reads, in part: “Without this funding, pilot compliance and readiness are jeopardized, and aerial firefighting capabilities are diminished. Changes to the Air Operations Section impact the Department’s ability to adhere to current automatic and mutual aid agreements, provide air ambulance service, and quickly respond to woodland fires with water dropping helicopters.”
NBC Los Angeles reported that the memo “also highlighted other programs that would suffer under the cuts, including the Disaster Response Section, which funds the bulldozer teams that cut breaks and control lines around wildfires, and the Critical Incident Planning and Training Section, which develops plans for major emergencies.”
