As Southern California’s fire season reaches its midway point, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass says she isn’t concerned that the city still doesn’t have a permanent fire chief, five months after she fired the previous one.
She made those comments on a Sunday morning appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” when Brennan asked her if she felt the city was prepared to handle another fire emergency without a permanent chief.
“No, no, I don’t think that [the lack of a permanent chief is] a problem at all,” Bass said. “Our interim fire chief has 40 years of experience. In fact, he had just recently retired. I called him in, out of retirement, during the fires. He was doing the emergency operation center. So he stepped in, didn’t miss a beat by taking over the fire department. And we are prepared. We do know that it’s fire season.”
Allen J. Schaben
Bass named Ronnie Villanueva as the interim fire chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department in February after she fired former Chief Kristin Crowley in the aftermath of January’s devastating Palisades and Eaton fires. The mayor cited a lack of preparation and Crowley’s apparent refusal to conduct an after-action report after the Palisades Fire destroyed neighborhoods and businesses across parts of L.A.
Crowley denied those claims and appealed Bass’ decision, but the City Council upheld it in a vote, with many councilmembers stating that Bass had the right to fire her. Crowley chose to remain with the department as Assistant Chief of the LAFD’s Operations Valley Bureau.
Villanueva, on the other hand, retired in 2024 after more than 40 years with the department. He came out of his brief retirement to take the interim chief position.
Bass told Brennan on Sunday morning that the city is still conducting a nationwide search for a permanent chief, and that Villanueva is welcome to apply for the job if he’d like to.
“We’re doing a national search, and he is certainly open to apply. But the nation’s second-largest city needs to make sure that we search the nation for the best talent,” she said. “And I’m sure that there will be people in the department that apply, but we want to cast the net wide.”
It’s not yet clear if Villanueva will apply to keep the position. Bass said he is “more than capable of managing well.”
