On Thursday of last week, the National Weather Service in Los Angeles had begun warning of “extreme fire weather conditions.” By Sunday, the warnings had become even more serious: “rapid fire growth and extreme behavior in the event of any fire start.”
But Bass posted his first warning on social platform X about the windstorm on Monday, while he was already in Ghana. His office didn’t send out a news release about the fire risk until nearly 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, after the fire had already broken out in Pacific Palisades.
“There was no preparation. Nothing was thought of here,” said Michael Gonzales, 47, whose home burned in Pacific Palisades, an affluent neighborhood overlooking the Pacific Ocean. His family of five was camped at a lodge in Santa Monica on Wednesday as they began to decide where they would live.
Gonzales, an attorney, said he believed Bass made a poor decision by remaining overseas despite forecasters warning of the most dangerous fire conditions in more than a decade.
“It was a complete breakdown of leadership and it starts with the mayor’s office,” he said in an interview.
In his first news conference since returning to Los Angeles, Bass on Wednesday defended his administration when asked about criticism of the city’s response to the fire. He said the disaster was the result of months of little rain and winds that had not been seen in the city for at least 14 years.
“We have to resist any attempt to separate us,” he said.
Bass said he returned home as quickly as he could after fires swept through Pacific Palisades and other parts of Southern California.
“I took the quickest route back, which included being on a military plane,” he said.
Rick Caruso, a real estate developer who lost to Bass in the 2022 mayoral race, said he had a private fire crew in Pacific Palisades Tuesday night to help protect a major outdoor commercial space from his property, as well as some nearby houses. . All night, he said, they were telling him that there was a shortage of water.
City officials confirmed that water tanks ran dry during the intense shooting early Wednesday in Pacific Palisades because demand increased four times the regular pace for 15 hours. They suggested the system was not designed to deliver so much water in such a short period.
“The lack of water in the hydrants, I don’t think there is an excuse,” Caruso said. “This was very predictable,” he said, referring to forecasts predicting the devastating wind storm.
Caruso, who served two terms as president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said it will take time to explain why firefighters struggled to get enough water to fight the fires.
“This is a massive failure of epic proportions,” he said. “Knowing the storm was coming and then leaving, and not running back. Leadership matters and the first thing is to be present.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Soumya Karlamangla, Orlando Mayorquín and Tim Arango
Photos by: Philip Cheung, Alex Welsh and Kyle Grillot
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
