New LAFD chief slams media 'smear' of firefighters who battled Palisades fire

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On his second day as chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, Jaime Moore criticized what he called media efforts to “smear” firefighters who responded to the worst wildfire in city history.Moore’s comments Tuesday appeared to be in reference to a Times report that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area of the Jan.

1 Lachman fire, which days later reignited into the deadly Palisades fire, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering.The Times reviewed text messages between firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the Palisades fire, indicating that crews had expressed concerns that the Lachman fire would reignite if left unprotected.“The audacity for people to make comments and say that there’s text messages out there that say that we did not put the fire out, that we did not extinguish the fire,” Moore told the Board of Fire Commissioners.

“Yet I have yet to see any of those text messages.”Moore’s statements represented a dramatic shift from his comments last week, when he told the L.A.City Council’s public safety committee — two days before the full council approved his appointment as chief — that the reports had generated an “understandable mistrust” of the fire department.“The most alarming thing to me is … our members were not listened to, or they were not heard,” he said last Wednesday.

California Texts between three firefighters and a third party reveal previously undisclosed details about the Los Angeles Fire Department’s handling of a Pacific Palisades burn site.In response to Mayor Karen Bass’ request that he investigate the department’s missteps during the Lachman fire, Moore had called for an outside organization to conduct the probe.On Tuesday, he said he would review LAFD’s response to the Lachman fire, though he did not spe...