New LAFD chief slams media ‘smear’ of firefighters who battled Palisades fire

In the immediate aftermath of the Palisades fire, top Los Angeles Fire Department officials blamed a lack of resources and extraordinarily high winds for their failures in combating the flames.

Now, newly appointed Fire Chief Jaime Moore has shifted his focus toward what he called media efforts to “smear” firefighters, a stance that raises questions about who will hold the Fire Department accountable for its mistakes and whether fire victims will get answers about how the blaze started and if more could have been done to prevent it.

Moore’s comments Tuesday appeared to be in reference to a Times report that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which days later reignited into the deadly Palisades fire, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering.

“Something that’s been very frustrating for me as fire chief, and through this process, is to watch my friends in the media smear our name and the work that our firefighters did to combat one of the most intense fires, the Palisades, the wind-driven monstrosity that it was,” he said at his first Board of Fire Commissioners meeting as chief.

Last Wednesday, speaking before City Council members who would vote on his appointment, Moore called for an outside investigation into the issues raised by The Times, which reviewed text messages from firefighters describing concerns from crews on the ground that the Lachman fire would flare up again.

Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, said The Times report had generated an “understandable mistrust” of the Fire Department.

“The most alarming thing to me is … our members were not listened to, or they were not heard,” he said then.

On Tuesday, in a dramatic shift from his earlier remarks, Moore took a defensive stance.

“The audacity for people to make comments and say that there’s text messages out there that say that we did not put the fire out, that we did not extinguish the fire,” he told the Board of Fire Commissioners. “Yet I have yet to see any of those text messages.”

He said he would review the LAFD’s response to the Lachman fire, though he did not specify who would conduct the investigation. A 70-page LAFD after-action report released last month detailed missteps in fire officials’ response to the Palisades fire, including major failures in deployment and communications, but did not examine the Lachman fire.

“I will do as Mayor [Karen] Bass asked, and I will look into the Lachman fire, and we will look at how that was handled, and we will learn from it, and we’ll be better from it,” Moore said Tuesday.

Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, which provides civilian oversight for the Fire Department, said Tuesday that because she had not seen the text messages quoted in The Times, they have “no bearing on the work of the Fire Commission.”

She also said that the commission supported the Fire Department’s after-action report, noting that the report was not meant to examine the rekindling of the Lachman fire but merely the first 72 hours of the department’s response to the Palisades fire.

“It has nothing to do and should not have had anything to do with the Lachman fire, because that is not what we asked for,” Hudley Hayes said.

Hudley Hayes said Wednesday that she believes there should be an independent review of the Lachman fire. As for the text messages, the commission cannot investigate them until the media hands them over, she said.

“If the media has [the text messages], they should produce them,” she said in a phone interview. “The media wants us to be transparent, then they should also abide by their own absolutism.”

Bass spokesperson Clara Karger said Wednesday that the mayor “has made clear to Chief Moore” that the investigation into the Lachman fire should be conducted by an independent entity.

“There is a need to continue implementing reforms in the department and Chief Moore has already begun undertaking that important work,” Karger said in a statement.

California

Days before Palisades inferno, firefighters were ordered to leave smoldering burn site

Texts between three firefighters and a third party reveal previously undisclosed details about the Los Angeles Fire Department’s handling of a Pacific Palisades burn site.

Oct. 30, 2025

In one text message reviewed by The Times, a firefighter who was at the Lachman scene Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief in charge had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of visible signs of smoldering terrain.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And another firefighter said in more recent texts that crew members were upset when directed to leave the scene, but that they could not ignore orders.

At least one battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, The Times found.

Pete Brown, a spokesperson for Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes Pacific Palisades, said the council is waiting to secure a contract with an outside group to investigate the cause of and the response to the Palisades fire, including the text messages and whether the Lachman fire was properly extinguished.

“What was the Los Angeles Fire Department doing between time that fire occurred and the Palisades fire broke out?” Brown said. “Why weren’t extra units or engines stationed at this location where we knew this fire had previously taken place?”

Federal investigators say the Lachman fire was deliberately set on New Year’s Day and burned underground in a canyon root system until it was rekindled by high winds on Jan. 7 to become the worst wildfire in city history.

A federal grand jury subpoena was served on the LAFD for firefighters’ communications, including text messages, about smoke or hot spots in the area of the Lachman fire, according to an LAFD memo dated Nov. 4. It is unclear if the subpoena is directly related to the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, who is accused of setting the Jan. 1 fire and has pleaded not guilty.

In January, The Times reported that LAFD officials decided not to pre-deploy any engines or firefighters to the Palisades — as they had done in the past — despite being warned that some of the most dangerous winds in recent years were headed for the region.

California

LAFD knew of firefighter complaints about Lachman mop-up and said nothing

At least one LAFD official knew that a battalion chief had directed firefighters to leave the scene of the Lachman fire Jan. 2, even though they complained the ground was still smoking in places and rocks remained hot to the touch, according to a source.

Nov. 12, 2025

In the days after the Jan. 7 fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, LAFD officials asserted that the firefighting effort was hampered by cuts in the department’s budget and low water levels for some fire hydrants.

Then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley defended her agency’s decisions, saying that commanders had to be strategic with limited resources while continuing to handle regular 911 calls.

Jason Hing, the department’s former chief deputy of emergency operations who is now chief of the Monterey Park Fire Department, described the fire as “the most erratic behavior I’ve ever seen.”

“There was no way anybody was going to catch that fire,” he told The Times.

After Bass ousted Crowley over her handling of the Palisades fire, the department was led by interim Chief Ronnie Villanueva until Moore took over on Monday.

Gene Cameron, who lived in the Palisades for 50 years before his home burned down in the Jan. 7 fire, said that Palisades residents should be involved in any independent investigation into the Lachman fire and that hearings should be open to the public.

He noted that The Times’ reporting was not critical of firefighters on the ground but exposed poor decisions by Fire Department management.

“I am very concerned about a cover-up of this whole situation. We all know that the Fire Department has a band of brothers kind of an ethos,” he told The Times on Wednesday. “Moore’s remarks are just typical of what I had feared — he’s now circling the wagons.”