Palisades Fire Report Cover-Up Exposed

The extent of the alterations made to the Palisades fire report has come to light.

The California Post has obtained the initial draft of the post-fire report, which had been quietly modified and withheld from the public.

These newly disclosed changes significantly alter a 92-page document meant to outline the disaster. They also increase pressure on Mayor Karen Bass to clarify whether her office influenced the editing in order to lessen criticism about the city’s handling of the fire, which resulted in 12 fatalities and destroyed over 6,800 structures.

Mayor Bass maintained that she merely reviewed an early draft and requested the Los Angeles Fire Department to verify data like weather conditions and budgets. She asserts that neither she nor her staff made edits to the report.

The original Palisades After Action Review was originally 92 pages, which is 22 pages longer than the version released in January. In that process, chapter titles were altered and contentious phrases, including “wind,” were omitted.

Interestingly, the draft summary mentioned that the report was prepared at the request of the Mayor’s Office, a reference that will not remain in the final document.

One notable change involves the language recognizing inadequate resources for handling “wind-driven vegetation fires,” stating the department would “take financial responsibility for not fully ramping up…” The final report, however, asserts that LAFD had “balanced adequate preparedness and fiscal responsibility by following the pre-deployment matrix.”

The draft implied that if resources had been adequately ramped up for weather conditions, more personnel could have been called in. Instead, the final version weakens this language, attributing early response failures to firefighters by saying they “lacked adequate resources” for red flag conditions.

Additionally, the draft noted that crews at the scene “lacked clarity regarding communication protocols,” but the final report shifted blame to the firefighters, stating that “most failed to communicate their needs.”

There were also changes in section titles, including shifting “Challenges” to “Successes.” Multiple mentions of “wind” vanish from the final report, including a critical note that helicopters couldn’t be dispatched due to high winds, which is absent in the final version.

Furthermore, the executive summary shifted from describing the fire as a “wind-driven brush fire” to outlining the firefighters facing “extreme fire behavior” from the moment the fire ignited.

Mayor Bass has faced scrutiny for traveling abroad while warnings about an impending wind event for Los Angeles were in place.

Some information was completely omitted from the report, such as the details on troops holding positions near an at-risk apartment complex until late in the day, and references to “several injuries” shifted to “several minor injuries.”

Additionally, the draft highlighted that, on the morning of the fire, 40 engines were not operational and only one backup was immediately available. The final report acknowledged this issue but started with claims about adequate fleet availability.

Freddy Escobar, president-elect of the Los Angeles Unified Fire Department, expressed outrage over the changes between the draft and final report.

“The biggest takeaway from these reports is the lessons learned,” he remarked, emphasizing that the public deserves to know the truth. He added that the after-action report isn’t a document for discipline, highlighting the absence of penalties associated with it.

Escobar, a veteran firefighter, pointed out that he had previously warned about staffing and equipment shortages prior to the fire. He argued that blaming firefighters is misguided; if mistakes were made, those should serve as learning opportunities for everyone involved.

He also noted that the name of the report’s author, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, was removed from the final version. Cook reportedly deemed the changes to be “highly unprofessional and contrary to established standards.”

The spokesperson for Mayor Bass strongly denied any involvement in the alteration of the Palisades report, stating, “There’s no reason to demand that these details be changed or erased… This taints journalism in the worst way, relying on unsourced third-party information.”