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A new Los Angeles Times investigation has confirmed what many Palisades residents suspected: the Los Angeles Fire Department quietly gutted an after-action report to soften its leadership’s failures before and during the catastrophic January fires. The documents show key findings were rewritten or deleted, a maneuver that smells less like careful analysis and more like political damage control.
According to sources close to the report’s author, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, the final public version left out blunt assessments that earlier drafts had made about deployment and leadership decisions under red-flag conditions. Mayor Karen Bass’s office has been forced into an embarrassing inquiry after the author’s complaints were escalated internally — proof that this was not merely sloppy paperwork but a cover-up that reached city hall.
The consequences of those leadership choices were predictably catastrophic: LAFD chose not to pre-deploy engines or keep firefighters on extra shifts ahead of the deadly winds, and crews did not employ thermal imaging that experts say could have found lingering hotspots. These were tactical decisions, not acts of God, and the Times lays them squarely at the feet of a department that prioritized optics over aggressive prevention. The decision to staff up by only a handful of reserve engines while dismissing hardy warnings is indefensible when people’s lives and homes were on the line.
Even more infuriating is that federal prosecutors have identified an alleged arsonist who started the initial blaze — an alleged criminal act that was allowed to smolder and then explode into the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history because of operational missteps. Twelve people died, thousands of families lost their homes, and taxpayers will shoulder the bill for rebuilding while city leaders argue about wording in a report. This is accountability theater while ordinary Americans suffer real loss.
The edits to the after-action report read like a classic political pivot: minimize leadership responsibility, deflect public outrage, and hope the story fades. Local outlets and watchdogs that have exposed these redactions are doing the work our city leaders refuse to do, and the anger in the Palisades is justified. When a department alters the record to protect itself, that is not a small sin — it is a betrayal of public trust that deserves a full independent investigation and personnel consequences.
Conservative commentators and leaders — including commentators on Fox who rightly called out the broader policy failures — are making the obvious point: California needs leadership that values public safety over political preservation. We need a governor who will hold city officials accountable, restore common-sense forest and brush management, ensure first responders have the resources and directives to pre-deploy in dangerous weather, and stop the bureaucratic game of rewriting blame. If Democrats in power insist on protecting their own instead of protecting people, then patriotic Americans should demand a change at the ballot box and immediate reforms on the ground.
