Leaked memo reveals LA Mayor Karen Bass demanded her fire department cut an extra $49 million just ONE WEEK before wildfires broke out

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass last week demanded that her fire department make another $49 million in cuts, a leaked memo showed.

This cut is already on top of the $17.6 million in cuts in her last budget.

The additional cuts, requested just days before fires broke out and destroyed parts of Los Angeles, would have closed 16 fire stations and crippled the department’s ability to respond to emergencies, sources said.

DailyMail.com interviewed current and former senior LAFD officers who were briefed on the shocking proposed cuts, and obtained the memo exclusively from an LA Fire Department (LAFD) whistleblower who posts under the name on social media “LAFD watchdog.”

The memo is dated January 6, just one day before the devastating Palisades Fire started.

According to the sources, it was sent to division chiefs and captains by LAFD ‘top brass’ at City Hall – following a charged meeting the previous Friday between Chief Kristin Crowley and Mayor Bass.

“The LAFD is still going through an FY [financial year] $48.8 million austerity exercise for 2024/2025 with the collective labor agreement [City Attorney’s Office]’, the document said.

‘The only way to save costs would be to close as many as sixteen fire stations (no resources, fire stations); this amounts to at least one fire station per district.

‘The details of this plan have not yet been worked out. This is a worst-case scenario and is NOT happening yet.”

Now more than 80 square kilometers have been destroyed by at least five separate fires, more than 4,000 homes and buildings have been destroyed, and ten people have been killed and more injured.

And the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, home to billionaires and celebrities, was almost completely wiped off the map.

But some senior firefighters already had their blood boiling when they received the note from their bosses about proposed cuts.

‘They didn’t want to make this public. It is an internal memo that should not be distributed,” a 25-year veteran of the fire service told DailyMail.com.

“It comes from the best buyers from downtown, City Hall.

“They’re trying to get more money for the homeless, and they need to start taking money from everyone.

‘But we have already exhausted our budget. It has already been tapped. That’s why they cut the fire academy in half so they could save more money. That is why we no longer test whether fire hydrants still work. We do everything we can to save money.

“We have fire trucks that we can’t get parts for. If one breaks down, we strip it of parts to put other fire engines on it, because we can no longer buy parts.

‘If you close 16 stations, that’s about 750 people. Then they expect us to take the same call volume. And yesterday we made 3,800 calls, almost twice what our daily call volume usually is.

“We are already 200 paramedics short, and we are about to have another 200 quit because we can’t do this anymore.

‘If we don’t work overtime, they suspend us and threaten us with dismissal. It’s unsustainable.’

The sources briefed on the memo said Bass first demanded tens of millions from the cash-strapped department during a meeting with Chief Crowley on Friday.

“Bass wanted to cut more,” said a source briefed on the meeting. “Last week they asked for an extra $49 million on Friday. The chef said “We don’t have it”. The mayor said, ‘Look for it.’

Chief Crowley had warned Bass last month that the $17.6 million in cuts the mayor successfully implemented through a City Council vote would “decrease the department’s ability to prepare, train, and respond large-scale emergencies, including forest fires’.

Crowley wrote the warning in one Memo from December 4 first reported by NBC LA, highlighting the $7 million reduction in “variable overtime staffing” this caused, which “negatively impacted the department’s ability to maintain core operations such as […] training, fire prevention and community education.”

The costs of these fires have been enormous.

Hundreds of feet of flames have destroyed thousands of homes, businesses, schools and houses of worship, causing an estimated $49 billion in damage so far in communities from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena.

Wild winds combined with an extended drought created the “perfect storm” for the infernos, which firefighters are struggling to control.

The Palisades Fire is currently only eight percent contained as firefighters battled in vain for two days to stop its spread.

The Eaton Fire is currently not at all contained, the Kenneth Fire and Hurst Fire are approximately 35 percent contained and the Lidia Fire is 75 percent contained.

Meanwhile, Bass, who traveled to Ghana on Tuesday to attend the West African country’s presidential inauguration, has been heavily criticized for the trip – as an alert about ‘critical’ weather conditions had been sent days before.

Bass defended her leadership when asked at a news conference Thursday, saying, “I just said what I think is the most important thing we need to do right now. That will remain my focus.’