LA Mayor Karen Bass Accused of Altering Fire Report to Hide Deadly Failures

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing explosive allegations that she personally interfered with an official investigation into the 2025 Palisades wildfire, a disaster that killed 12 people, destroyed over 6,000 structures, and left much of the city’s west side in ruins.

According to whistleblowers, Bass pressured fire officials to water down the final report and remove key findings that highlighted failures by the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) failures that could open the city to legal liability and further public outrage.

“The mayor didn’t tell the truth when she said she had nothing to do with changing the report,” one source told the Los Angeles Times.

Here’s what we know:

• The original draft of the fire report stated that the LAFD’s lack of staffing and failure to pre-deploy engines “did not align” with safety policy.

• The final version, released in October 2025, absurdly claimed the department went “above and beyond” protocols a claim the original author, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, publicly called “highly unprofessional.”

• Two confidants of Bass are reportedly willing to testify under oath that she held back the report until the changes were made.

This is not just political spin it’s a potential cover-up of a massive public safety failure. One of Bass’s own allies reportedly warned her that changing the document would cause “significant political damage.” He was right.

At the height of the crisis, Bass was vacationing in Ghana for a presidential inauguration, nowhere near the city she was elected to lead. When she returned, she refused to answer questions about why she had just slashed the LAFD’s budget by $23 million months earlier.

That cut was the second-largest in her fiscal plan.

Public records later confirmed that the fire department:

• Ignored advanced forecasts of catastrophic winds

• Failed to keep crews on critical second shifts

• Mishandled a smaller fire on New Year’s Day that smoldered for six days before erupting into the deadly Palisades inferno

Even as all this came to light, Fire Chief Jaime Moore, whom Bass personally appointed, announced he would not investigate who altered the report. Instead, he would “focus on the future.”

Circle the wagons. Protect the mayor.

Los Angeles residents are understandably outraged. What should have been a transparent review of a disaster has turned into a crisis of credibility one that could soon explode into legal proceedings.

With two members of Bass’s inner circle prepared to testify that she intervened directly, this scandal may go far beyond political embarrassment it could become the defining collapse of her administration.

And let’s be clear: this is what Democrat “leadership” looks like in California. Budget cuts to public safety. Absentee leadership during disaster. And when things go wrong? Censorship, denial, and spin.

The people of Los Angeles deserve the truth. And they deserve a mayor who doesn’t hide from it.

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