The Los Angeles Fire Department begged the city’s council for nearly $100million to replace its entire fleet just two months before the deadly wildfires, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The infernos that are consuming Los Angeles have so far killed at least 24 and have displaced more than 200,000 people, and critics have been excoriating the city’s leadership for their decision to cut the LAFD’s already dwindling budget.
In a preliminary budget request for 2025/26, signed by Fire Chief Kristin Rowley, made on October 29, the LAFD asked for $96,535,000 to fund a ‘fleet replacement plan’.
The revelations come amid growing anger at the city’s Democratic leadership, particularly mayor Karen Bass, for its alleged focus on diversity and inclusion over emergency preparedness.
The firefighting force said in its request to the city: ‘Many vehicles have surpasses their expected service life, leading to increased maintenance costs, reduces parts availability and potential downtime.’
And in its formal proposal to the city in November, it requested $24,063,000 for ‘new fleet/apparatus purchases’.
In the preliminary budget request, the LAFD also asked for more than $1.9million to restore 16 maintenance positions ‘deleted’ in last year’s budget.
It said in its request: ‘The positions support fleet maintenance, equipment engineering, purchasing and warehouse management and distribution.’
View of the fire trucks parked for the night at the first responders base camp set up at Zuma Beach, on January 12, 2025, in Malibu, California
LA mayor Karen Bass (pictured) has been heavily criticised for her handling of the fires
The preliminary budget request for 2025/26 was signed by Fire Chief Kristin Rowley (pictured)
The positions requested include one truck operator, one tire repairer, four heavy duty equipment mechanics, nine mechanical helpers, one carpenter, one general automotive supervisor, two administrative clerks and one storekeeper.
The LAFD also asked for $3.1million to replace body armour worn by ‘60% of sworn members.’
Karen Bass is due to present the city’s budget in April.
While the fire department’s budget steadily grew from from $674.27 million in 2019 to $819.64 million in 2025, this year it faced a significant fall from $837.19 million in 2024.
In a December memo, Crowley said the cut of $17.6million ‘adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention, and community education.’
The memo also pointed to a $7million reduction in overtime.
A leaked memo last week revealed that Karen Bass had demanded the LAFD make an additional $49million budget cut, on top of the $17.6million cut.
The extra cuts, requested just days before fires broke out and devastated swathes of Los Angeles, would have shut down 16 fire stations and crippled the department’s ability to respond to emergencies, sources previously told DailyMail.com.
The Los Angeles Fire Department begged the city’s council for nearly $100million to replace its entire fleet just two months before the deadly wildfires
A firefighter monitors the spread of the Auto Fire in Oxnard, North West of Los Angeles, California, on January 13, 2025
A firefighter battles the Palisades Fire as it burns a structure in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, January 7, 2025
Firefighters work to extinguish the last embers in the hills of Mandeville Canyon after the Palisades Fire burned part of it, on January 13, 2025, in Los Angeles, California
The bruised and battered city of Los Angeles remains on high alert as the extreme weather conditions which sparked apocalyptic infernos intensify again
A Los Angeles County firefighter in front of a burning house while battling the Palisades wildfire on January 7
On top of this, LA County, a separate entity, was accused of throwing money at DEI initiatives while cutting its own firefighting budget.
Fox News reported that hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on initiatives including $14,010 to the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, $190,000 to the Homeless and HIV needle exchange program, and $100,000 of county funds to pay for Juneteenth celebrations.
The city has long been warned of its funding problem.
Last May, Freddy Escobar, an LAFD Captain II told the city during a budget hearing: ‘We don’t have enough firefighters and medics, we don’t have enough fire engines, we don’t have enough trucks and ambulances in the field.’
Escobar, who is also the president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City union, added: ‘We don’t have the equipment and staffing that we need to respond to half a million emergency calls for service every year.’
‘The LAFD has fewer firefighters and medics today than we had 15 years ago, but our emergency calls for service has increased by more than 50% during that same time,’ testified Escobar.
Fellow captain and union leader Chuong Ho added at the same meeting: ‘It just makes no sense to have million dollar fire trucks and engines taken out of service and sidelined because we don’t have enough mechanics to keep them running.’
But last week, LA mayor Karen Bass denied that the cuts she implemented had any impact on the fire department’s ability to deal with the ongoing wildfires.
The fires have destroyed an estimated $275billion in property values and economic losses
A home burns in the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025
Firefighters are still battling to get the major blazes under control. They’ve torn through more than 40,000 acres of land, destroyed an estimated 12,300 structures and cost at least 24 people their lives
‘I think if you go back and look at the reductions that have been made, there were no reductions that would have impacted the situation we were dealing with over the last couple of days’, she said.
Escobar however disagreed, writing in a op-ed for USA Today: ‘We can, and will, get through these devastating fires and get to work on the recovery process immediately. As part of this recovery, Los Angeles is going to have to make consequential decisions.
‘Will we finally invest in our fire department and build the fire stations and hire the firefighters we need to protect Los Angeles? Can we and will we build the fire department that we need as we move toward the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games and as we face the everyday public safety challenges that come from our residents?
‘The people of Los Angeles deserve a fully staffed, first-class fire department. Our firefighters will continue to do our part. It’s time for city leaders to do theirs.’
Critics of the current LA administration are furious with their handling of the crisis.
Jack Hibbs, the founding pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, did not mince words as he spoke out about the failures of Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom, calling them both ‘incompetent’ for their handling of the massive blazes.
‘This is the most wealthy state in the 50. We pay the most in taxes, the most in gas, we pay the most in electricity, you name it – if it’s in California, we pay the most for it,’ he began.
‘Why? Because of our government.
A view of a burned house and a car as greater Los Angeles fire continue, in Altadena, Los Angeles County, California, United States on January 13, 2025
Winds blow embers from the Eaton Fire in Altadena, January 8, 2025
The death toll is expected to grow as cadaver dogs gain access to the smoldering wreckages of entire neighborhoods
‘Why? Because of things that Sacramento does because they can,’ Hibbs said of the seat of California’s state government.
He went on to say that California has been under complete Democratic control, noting that the party has a ‘supermajority’ in the state government – which he said means ‘nobody can oppose their decision making.
‘And now you’ve got it, you got a situation where a catastrophe came and the billions of dollars that you and I gave were diverted to other woke stupid Democratic projects.
‘That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact.’
‘I’m upset and I’m angry, and it’s the right kind of anger,’ Hibbs told his congregation as he spoke out about Los Angeles’ fire hydrants being left without water.
He blamed the crisis on ‘bad management [and] horrific politicians who took your money and took trips like Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, she decided to go to Africa the week of the fires to go on a little you paid for.
‘She was really put out when she was told to come home,’ Hibbs claimed, before launching into an attack on Newsom, who he said was caught laughing on tape at one of the command centers.
‘It’s time to replace the leadership in California,’ Hibbs concluded, to raucous applause.
‘You don’t need any more examples,’ he said. ‘These fires could have been stopped.’
But Hibbs was not the only one criticizing the government’s handling of the fires, as Elon Musk – who is set to lead incoming President Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency – posting about the state’s leadership just two days after the fires broke out.
The Palisades Fire – the largest of the three blazes ripping through Los Angeles – ignited on January 7 has scorched 23,713 acres
A firefighter walks past homes destroyed in the Palisades Fire
Charred homes and burnt cars are pictured amid the rubble of the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades
A chimney which remains standing is reflected in the water of a home swimming pool in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California on January 13, 2025
‘The immense loss of homes in LA is primarily due to: 1. Nonsensical overregulation that prevented creating fire breaks and doing brush clearing. 2. Bad governance at the state and local level that resulted in a shortage of water,’ he wrote on X.
Businessman and mayoral candidate Rick Caruso also blasted local officials last week for failing to refill the water supplies despite knowing that strong winds which could whip up wildfires were on the way.
‘The (firefighters’) hands have been tied. They can’t fight a fire without water and the resources that are needed. Everybody knew these winds were coming,’ Caruso told Fox 11.
‘The other question has to be, were all the things in place to try to mitigate the damage here?
‘The real issue to me here is two-fold. We’ve had decades to remove the brush in these hills that spreads so quickly, and the second is, we’ve got to have water.
‘My understanding is the reservoir was not refilled in time, in a timely manner to keep the hydrants going… this is basic stuff, this isn’t high science here.
‘It’s all about leadership and management that we’re seeing a failure of, and all of these residents are paying the ultimate price for that.’
Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the fires. They could be the nation’s costliest ever.
Government agencies haven’t provided preliminary damage estimates yet, but AccuWeather, a company that provides data on weather and its impact, puts the damage and economic losses at $250 billion to $275 billion.
