Two Months Before Deadly Blazes, LA Fire Chief Said She Needed More Firefighters—Then Karen Bass's Admin Scrubbed the Memo

Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley warned city officials in November that her department had about half as many firefighters as it needed. When deadly wildfires struck the city two months later, Mayor Karen Bass's administration pulled Crowley's memo from its website.

Crowley wrote to the city's fire commissioners—a five-person board appointed by Bass—on Nov. 18 and asked them to transmit the message to Bass and the city council. The fire department's size, she said, hadn't increased...