Her city was burning, but Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was too busy partying in Africa, having been invited to attend the inauguration of Ghana's president. It was a terrible move, a public relations nightmare, especially after fire crews struggled to contain the blaze, which became one of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in state history. It raged for most of January 2025. There have been petitions to recall Bass—this story should make that push unstoppable. She doctored the report on the fire (via NY Post):
BREAKING: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass allegedly had officials alter an after-action report on the Palisades fire to downplay failures by the city and the Los Angeles Fire Department in combating the catastrophic blaze.
— Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) February 4, 2026
Sources close to Bass say she lied when she claimed she had… pic.twitter.com/an9cKJ225A
Embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered the official Palisades Fire response report to downplay the failures made by the city and fire department when the deadly blaze erupted, a new report said.
Bass, after seeing an early draft of the after-action report, wanted key findings of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s shortcomings scrubbed or watered down — and even warned then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva the unedited conclusions could expose the city to legal liability, sources close to the Democrat’s staff told the Los Angeles Times.
Bass was cautioned that the self-serving tweaks in with the report was a “bad idea” that could torpedo her political career, but still withheld the working draft until after changes were made, insiders told the Times.
The official report, released in October, cut a section from the initial version exposing the LAFD’s choice not to fully staff or pre-deploy all available crews despite forecasts of catastrophic winds because it didn’t align with city policy, the outlet reported.
It instead commended department brass for going “above and beyond” with a standard “pre-deployment matrix,” despite the fire leveling over 16,000 homes and structures, causing $150 billion in damages, and killing 12 people.
In the aftermath, the city’s fire chief was fired, which was the subject of some political drama, specifically how firefighters were not allowed to discuss that homeless encampments might have been the sources for the blaze. There were other issues, including a decrepit fire hydrant system, a lack of resources, drained reservoirs, and insufficient manpower. For a state that taxes its residents to death, it was a shambolic response to a natural disaster.
While it wasn’t a homeless person per se, though there have been documented reports of such people starting fires, the cause of this inferno falls at the feet of Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29. He reportedly caused the fire, which was put out initially by firefighters on January 7, but the embers smoldered underground, re-igniting and leading to disaster. Rinderknecht faces 45 years behind bars if convicted on all counts.
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