Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley claimed that the City of Los Angeles failed its over 100,000 displaced citizens that were compelled to leave from the recurring wildfire siege.
When asked by Fox News’ associate, KTTV, if the City of Los Angeles, and its Mayor Karen Bass stopped working the city, Crowley responded: “Yes.”
Crowley claimed that pushing staffing lacks influenced the division’s feedback time when the blaze started tearing throughout Los Angeles.
“Any budget cut is going to impact our ability to provide service,” she claimed. “That is a ground truth in regard to our ability. If there’s a budget cut, we had to pull from somewhere else. What does that mean? That doesn’t get done or that there are delays.”
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Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley talks throughout a press conference at Harbor– UCLA Medical Center in the West Carson location of Los Angeles on Thursday,Feb 15, 2024. (Richard Vogel/ AP)
Crowley claimed that staffing lacks and absence of sources has actually been a pushing concern encountering the division for several years. She indicated a collection of memoranda she sent out to the city determining carefully the requirements of the division.
“Since day one, we’ve identified huge gaps in regard to our service delivery and our ability of our firefighters’ boots on the ground to do their jobs since day one,” she claimed. “This is my third budget as we’re going into 2025-2026, and what I can tell you is we are still understaffed, we’re still under-resourced and we’re still underfunded.”
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When inquired about exactly how the budget plan cuts, which lowered the budget plan by $17,553,814 from $837,191,237 to $819,637,423, Crowley claimed that they “did impact our ability to provide service.”
“On a normal day, our firefighters are running over 1,500 calls, and they’re transporting 650 patients a day – let alone the last three days of what we’ve had,” she claimed.
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The issues encountering the fire division “isn’t a new problem,” Crowley informed the neighborhood electrical outlet.
“The amount of calls that our firefighters are running today has doubled since 2010, a 55% increase with 68 fewer people. Full transparency. This isn’t a new problem for us,” she claimed. “Since the three years that I’ve been in the seat, I’ve sounded the alarm to say we need more.”
We are yelling to be correctly moneyed to ensure that our firemens can do their tasks …
“This is no longer sustainable. So with that, we are now in a position to be properly funded,” she claimed. “We are screaming to be properly funded to make sure that our firefighters can do their jobs so that we can serve the community.”
A fireman functions a fire throughout Eaton fire on Wednesday,Jan 8, 2025, in Altadena, CA. (Jason Armond/ Los Angeles Times using Getty Images)
Crowley claimed that the division has actually determined spaces in solution and sent out referrals to the city.
“We know we need 62 new fire stations. We need to double the size of our firefighters. The growth of this city since 1960 has doubled and we have less fire stations,” she claimed.
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“So when you talk about sounding the alarm and asking and requesting budgets that are easily justifiable based off of the data, real data shows what the fire department needs to serve this beautiful city and the beautiful community that we swore that we would. That’s what that is about,” she claimed.
Speaking from the heart, Crowley claimed: “None of us on the fire department are politicians.”
“Firefighters are here to serve them, first and foremost. Again, none of us on the fire department are politicians. We’re public servants first,” she claimed. “We took an oath to serve the public before ourselves and even before our families.”
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“So with that, I want to focus on path forward. I want to focus on what the LAFD needs,” Crowley claimed. “What our people need to do their jobs is to make sure that we can save lives and that we can protect property to the greatest capacity.”
“But we need to be funded appropriately,” she claimed. “And that’s where my head is at.”
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller added to this record.
