The Brief

More than a month before the Palisades Fire, then-Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley issued a dire warning: Her department was woefully understaffed, response times were high, equipment was in disrepair and emergency preparedness was suffering.

It's not clear whether a better funded agency would have slowed the firestorm. Firefighters faced gale force winds of up to 100 mph when the fire broke out.

What is clear is that day-to-day service calls — most of them for medical help — suffer because L.A. has one of the smallest big city fire departments in the country.

“In many ways, the current staffing, deployment model and size of the LAFD has not changed since the 1960s,” Crowley wrote in a November memo to the Board of Fire Commissioners.

The population of the city has grown to more than 3.9 million, from 2.5 million in 1960, but the number of firefighters has not grown proportionately.

Crowley has since been fired by Mayor Karen Bass, who last Friday cited the chief’s failure to increase the number of on-duty firefighters in the hours before the Palisades Fire and her unwillingness to participate in an evaluation of the department’s response to the disaster.

In a statement after her firing, Crowley did not address the Palisades Fire or the mayor’s accusations directly but said she based her actions “on taking care of our firefighters so that they could take care of our communities.”

But Crowley has not been the only one ringing the alarm that the LAFD is stretched to the limit.

Reports obtained by LAist through public records requests found rescue ambulances and fire trucks from the department’s 106 stations have scrambled from one call to the next with ever-increasing response times in recent years.

“It's not about one budget. It's not about one mayor. It's about decades of neglect of the LAFD,” said Freddy Escobar, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles. “The 911 caller is going to pay the ultimate sacrifice because we don’t have the resources.”

Kristin Crowley was removed from her position as LAFD chief last week, but she plans to remain with the department.

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Myung J. Chun

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Longer response times

L.A. has just under one firefighter per 1,000 residents. Since 1986, the average number of firefighters in densely populated cities across the country ranged from 1.54 to 1.81 per 1,000, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

As calls for service have increased, so have response times. The overall response time for 90% of calls jumped more than a minute, to 7 minutes and 53 seconds, from 2018 to 2022, according to a 2024 Standards of Cover analysis by the International Association of Firefighters. The IAFF is a labor union of firefighters that also provides analysis of fire operations to local fire departments.

The National Fire Protection Association recommends a 4-minute standard.

Response times are especially complicated in L.A., according to a separate 2023 Standards of Cover report by Citygate Associates. Citygate is a consulting firm that evaluates fire departments across the country.

The challenges include a “hilly topography in some areas, and a public road pattern that, in certain areas, is geographically challenged with rivers, open spaces, and/or a lack of major cross-connecting roadways,” according to the report.

As areas continue to redevelop and add population, the department will need adjustments “just to maintain, much less improve, response times,” the report reads.

Medical calls dominate resources

L.A’s Fire Department responds to more than 500,000 calls for service per year. More than 80% are calls from people who need medical help. The department takes more than 600 people to hospitals every day. It treats hundreds more people on scene, and many of them are unhoused.

The LAFD responds to more than 66,000 calls per year related to the city’s unhoused population, according to the department.

“If we were a hospital, we would have the largest emergency room in the country,” Battalion Chief Eric Roberts said in an interview.

According to the Citygate report, fire trucks are too often busy with medical calls, stretching call times for fires and other calls. The consulting firm recommends expanding the use of lightweight pickup trucks to respond to less serious medical calls and small fires. They’re called fast response vehicles, and the LAFD has three of them.

“The alternative response program needs to scale massively and quickly to lower the workload placed on fire units back down to moderate and serious emergencies,” the Citygate report states. “Well over 100 new non-firefighter personnel must be hired and trained for alternative response measures to meet the service needs of the city.”

The report also recommends staffing 12 to 15 new rescue ambulances and building one new fire station — in the northern San Fernando Valley.

The International Association of Firefighters study recommends adding 32 rescue ambulances and 378 firefighters. In addition, the study recommended adding 62 new fire stations.

Neither study placed a cost on their recommendations.

Personnel by the numbers

Over the past five years, the number of sworn and civilian personnel at the department has stayed relatively constant, rising only slightly to 3,877, from 3,831, according to budget documents. But in the latest budget for the fiscal year that started July 1, 2024, the department lost 58 positions from the year before.

In a December report, Crowley recommended adding 438 positions.

“I think it's important for us to look at what resources do we want to grow,” said Councilmember Tim McOsker, who sits on the city’s Public Safety Committee. “If we have new stations, if we have new apparatus, we need to have persons assigned to them.”

Part of the department’s short staffing problem dates to the 2008 recession, when city tax revenue plummeted. The department lost more than 10% of its positions and mothballed fire trucks.

“We reduced our resources in a way that we have not fully recovered from,” Roberts said.

McOsker agreed.

“Over a number of years — many, many years — we have not put enough money into the Fire Department,” McOsker said, adding that the Palisades Fire has increased urgency. The councilmember, whose District 15 includes San Pedro, Wilmington and Watts, said he thinks “everyone in the city recognizes that it's important to have adequate fire services.”

Calls for increased funding for the Fire Department come as the city faces budget problems. Four months into the fiscal year that began July 1, the city had already overspent its budget by nearly $300 million, according to the city administrative officer.

“We might have to shrink in other areas,” McOsker said.

Councilmember Traci Park, whose District 11 includes the Pacific Palisades, said the city will have to make some hard decisions.

“We can’t keep investing in and doubling down on programs that aren’t getting us results,” Park said. “And I feel like homelessness is a good example of that.”

The question is whether reducing spending on homelessness would increase the burden on the Fire Department.

More from Crowley

Crowley, who has elected to stay with the department in a lower rank, decried the loss of civilian staff and overtime variable staffing hours, warning the reduction has “severely limited the department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large scale emergencies.”

As the Palisades Fire was burning, Crowley said $17 million in cuts to her department in last year’s budget hampered the department’s response — in part because there are not enough mechanics to fix broken fire trucks.

A spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass said the signing of a labor contract that boosted salaries for firefighters and the funding of new equipment resulted in a net increase in funding for the department of $110 million. But Crowley said it still wasn’t enough.

“We are screaming to be properly funded,” Crowley, the first woman and first gay person to lead the department, told a T.V. station during the first few days of the fire.

In that December report, she requested 438 new sworn and civilian positions for her department as part of a 7.6% increase in her operating budget.

Park, meanwhile, is seeking to place a bond measure on next year’s ballot that would increase funding for the Fire Department.

The councilmember’s proposal has been referred to the City Council’s Rules Committee.

LAist Senior Reporter Ted Rohrlich contributed to this report.

LAX officials are considering a proposal Tuesday to increase the fees rideshare companies are charged to access the airport.

Currently, rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft generally pass a $4 to $5 airport fee along to their customers. You might see this listed as a line item on your receipt as an “LAX Airport Surcharge.”

But the Los Angeles World Airports Board of Commissioners could vote to increase that fee by as much as $2 to $8 depending on where the rideshare picks you up or drops you off.

The idea behind the proposal is to encourage the use of the long-awaited, much-delayed and over-budget Automated People Mover once it opens and decrease congestion in the central terminal area, the area of the airport that’s also known as the horseshoe.

David Reich, a deputy executive director for the city agency that manages the airport, told LAist that if the proposal is approved, LAX doesn’t plan on increasing the fee until after the Automated People Mover opens, which could be later this year.

The proposed increases

When the Automated People Mover opens, there will be new curb space for drop-off and pick-up. Known as the “ground transport center,” this new curb space will be a 4-minute trip from the terminal area via the Automated People Mover, according to Reich.

LAX-it will shut down as a rideshare and taxi lot once the train opens, Reich said.

If the proposal is approved, getting an Uber or Lyft to and from the ground transport center will come with a $6 airport fee.

Even once the Automated People Mover opens, you will still be able to get rides directly to and from the curbs along the horseshoe, but they will come with a $12 fee.

The proposed increases would also apply to taxi and limousine services, which currently operate under a slightly different fee structure than rideshare companies.

The increased fees are expected to generate as much as $100 million in the first year the Automated People Mover is usable, according to a report to the board.

Why the different fees for the different locations?

In a report to the board, Reich said the Automated People Mover represents a "significant investment” that aims to “fundamentally reshape how vehicles move through the airport.”

The idea behind having a higher fee for direct access to the curbs along the horseshoe is to encourage “use of new, high-capacity infrastructure” and preserve central terminal access for trips “that most require it.”

Uber is trying to fight the increases

Uber is trying to mobilize the public to fight the proposed fee increases.

“Raising the LAX rideshare fee from $5 to $12 at the curb would punish travelers, working families, and seniors who depend on affordable, reliable transportation,” Danielle Lam, the head of local California policy for Uber, said in a statement.

On Monday, Uber sent an email to passengers who recently used the rideshare service, urging them to write to city officials to “stop this massive fee hike.”

Lyft has not responded to a request for comment.

Ten state lawmakers who are members of the L.A. County delegation sent a letter on Monday to the board expressing their “strong opposition” to the proposed increases.

“Many Angelenos rely on a mix of options, including rideshare services and friends or family dropping off loved ones,” the legislators wrote in the letter. “Managing congestion cannot realistically rely on steep fee increases for certain transportation options.”

Eight of the 10 legislators who signed the letter have received campaign contributions from Uber or Lyft, according to an LAist analysis of state campaign contribution data.

Other ways to access the airport

Now is probably a good time to remind folks that there are other ways to get to the airport that don’t involve rideshares, taxis or even lifts from families and friends.

The FlyAway bus offers regularly scheduled rides from the airport to Union Station in downtown L.A. and Van Nuys. You can see the schedules here. 

Last year, the countywide transportation agency unveiled the LAX/Metro Transit center, which is accessible from the C and K rail lines and several bus routes. For now, an LAX shuttle is bringing travelers from the station to the airport. It will be one of the stops on the Automated People Mover once it opens.

The Newport Beach City Council is considering demolishing part of its quirky, beloved sculpture garden in Civic Center Park to make way for a new police station.

The city has been trying to figure out how to replace its aging police headquarters for years. It bought a property in 2022 with that intent. But an ad hoc City Council committee decided, controversially, it might be better to instead build a new station on the parkland next to city hall.

What’s so great about the sculpture garden?

The sculpture garden is a “museum without walls” treasured by art and nature lovers alike. It houses the quirky and once-controversial “Bunnyhenge,” included on the popular Atlas Obscura travel guide. Opponents of putting a new police headquarters on park grounds say it would compromise the environment, and decimate the sculpture garden.

What do supporters of the new station idea say?

Supporters say the current police station, built in 1973, is long overdue for an upgrade, and that the police force needs more space for things like servers to store digital evidence. The council ad hoc committee that studied the issue says the Civic Center parkland makes the most sense for a new building because the city already owns the land, and it would consolidate the city’s main services in one place.

Is it a done deal?

Far from it. The City Council is holding a study session Tuesday to present the plan publicly and gather input. If the council decides to go forward, the next step would be to hire a consultant to design the building and get started on an environmental impact report.

Here’s how to learn more and weigh in:

A new exhibit in L.A. — Vehicles of Expression: The Craft of the Skateboard — arrives this weekend, highlighting the cultural impact, history and artistry of handmade skateboards.

It’s the latest exhibit at Craft in America Center, a museum and library that highlights handcrafted artwork.

Todd Huber, skateboard historian and founder of the Skateboarding Hall of Fame, said before 1962, it wasn’t possible to buy a skateboard in a store.

“Skateboarding started as a craft,” Huber said on AirTalk, LAst 89.3’s daily news program. “Somewhere in the 50s until 1962, if you wanted to sidewalk surf, as they called it, you had to make your own out of roller skates.”

What to expect

Emily Zaiden, the director and lead curator of the Craft in America Center based in Los Angeles, told LAist’s AirTalk the exhibit was tricky to curate.

“What we wanted to do was focus on both the history and then expand into how this has been an object that people have interpreted in so many different ways since the very beginning,” Zaiden said.

Artists who craft skateboards not only think of design, but also of the features that give riders the ability to do tricks, such as wheelies and kickflips.

“The ways that people have constructed boards, engineered boards, design boards … people are really renegade, which I think is really the spirit of skateboarding overall,” Zaiden said. “This very independent, out-of-the-box approach and making boards that allow them to do all kinds of wacky tricks and do all kinds of things that no one imagined possible physically with their body, but through the object of the board.”

Know before you go

The exhibit at Craft in America Center opens to the public on Saturday. Admission is free. The museum is open from noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.