rewrite this title in other words: Palisades fire report sent to mayor’s office for ‘correction’

Months after the Palisades fire, the head of the Los Angeles Fire Commission asked about the long-awaited Fire Department report.

Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva said a “working team” has been sent to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, Genethia Hudley Hayes told The Times on Tuesday.

In the interview, which took place in mid-August or later, Villanueva said the mayor’s office had requested “clearances,” but did not say what they were, according to Hudley Hayes.

Hudley Hayes, who was appointed by Bass in June 2023 to serve on the five-member commission that provides public oversight of the LAFD, said that in his long career in public roles, he has learned that words like “refinement” can mean disturbing changes in a government report, made with the intention of hiding the facts.

Earlier Tuesday, Fire Chief Jaime Moore, responding to the results of a Times investigation, acknowledged that the after-action report was designed to minimize criticism of the LAFD’s handling of the Palisades fire.

The Times previously reported that Hudley Hayes was concerned enough about the potential arrangement that he sought advice from the city’s deputy attorney.

But Hudley Hayes’ comments on Tuesday were his first public statements that his concern stemmed from what he understood as the mayor’s office’s intent to influence the report, which was supposed to reveal what happened in the Palisades firefight and how to prevent mistakes from happening again.

Hudley Hayes said that after reviewing the first draft of the after-action report, as well as the final document released by the LAFD on October 8, he was satisfied that the “key findings” had not been changed.

But his account raises questions about the mayor’s role in the review of the report that, as Moore acknowledged Tuesday, downplayed the city’s failure to prepare for and respond to the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed much of the Palisades and surrounding areas.

On Tuesday, Bass’ office did not immediately explain what the fix was. Earlier, the spokesperson of this office said that the office does not want these plans to be changed, but asked the LAFD to verify the authenticity of things such as the weather and how the department’s budget contributed to the disaster.

“The report was written and edited by the Fire Department,” department spokeswoman Clara Karger said in an email last month. “We didn’t redline, review every page or review every draft of the report.”

The Times obtained and analyzed seven drafts of the report and identified deletions and revisions. The most significant changes in the various iterations of the report involved LAFD deployment decisions ahead of a fire, as wind warnings became increasingly dire.

In one incident, LAFD officials removed language saying that the decision to not fully hire personnel and redeploy existing personnel and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast was “inconsistent” with the department’s policy and procedures on red flag days. Instead, the final report said the number of engine companies released before the fire “exceeded the standard LAFD deployment matrix.”

Moore, who replaced Villanueva in November, admitted the report was watered down to protect the brass from scrutiny.

“It is now clear that many of the documents were redacted to soften the language and minimize the clear criticism of the department’s leadership in that final report,” Moore said at Tuesday’s Fire Commission meeting. “This arrangement happened before I was appointed as fire chief. And I can assure you that nothing like this will happen again as long as I am still a firefighter.”

The LAFD did not respond to a question about who ordered the report changed. Villanueva also did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.

Hudley Hayes said he reached out to Villanueva around August 21, when the Times published a story quoting his colleague on the Fire Commission, Sharon Delugach, expressing a desire to see an after-action report.

“It dawned on me then that he was right. We had never seen it before – it was taking so long,” said Hudley Hayes. “That’s the point I called interim chief Villanueva.”

Meanwhile, the author of the report, Army Chief Kenneth Cook, had sent a PDF of his report to Villanueva in early August, asking the chief to select a few people to provide planning to make changes to his text.

The following week, Cook emailed the king his final draft.

“Thank you for all your hard work,” Villanueva replied. “I’ll let you know how we go forward.”

Over the next two months, the report went through a series of edits – behind closed doors and without Cook’s involvement, as The Times revealed last month.

On October 8, the same day the report was released, Cook sent an email to Villanueva, refusing to approve the public version because of changes that changed his findings and made the report “highly irrelevant and inconsistent with our established standards.”

“After reviewing the revised version submitted by your office, I must respectfully decline to approve it as it stands,” Cook wrote in an email obtained by The Times. “This document has changed significantly and contains significant deletions of information that, in some cases, change the conclusions originally presented.”

A July email thread reviewed by the Times shows that the LAFD is forming a “crisis management group” to address concerns about how the after-action report will be received.

“The primary goal of this task force is to jointly manage communications on any critical public relations issue that may arise. The most immediate and pressing issue is the Palisades After Action Report,” LAFD Assistant Chief Kairi Brown wrote in an email to eight other people.

“With so much interest from the media, politicians and the public, it is important that we present a coherent response to the anticipated questions and concerns,” Brown wrote. “By doing so, we can ensure that our messages are clear and consistent, allowing us to create our own narrative rather than reactive responses.”

Hudley Hayes, who previously served on the LA Unified school board, said he didn’t think “anything important was omitted” from the final report.

He said he saw only minor differences, such as “mistakes” being changed to “challenges,” and the removal of the names of firefighters.

He added that he doesn’t know who ordered the changes revealed by the Times — and that outside of his oversight role, he’s “not particularly” interested in finding out.

“Our job is to take the report we have in front of us, our job is to ensure that those recommendations that came to us in the public report are taken care of,” he said. “You ask me political questions.”

Pringle is a former staff writer for The Times.