The mayor said she has called for a full investigation of โeverythingโ leading up to January 7, when the fires began.
โA necessary step to the investigation was the president of the fire commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after-action report on the fires. The fire chief refused,โ Bass said.
โWe all know that 1000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke were instead sent home on Chief Crowleyโs watch. These actions required her removal.โ
Tensions had flared between the two officials even as flames raged in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighbourhoods.
There was sharp criticism over the firefight, particularly in the tony Pacific Palisades area, where hydrants ran dry because of huge demands on the system.
Just days after the wind-driven fires broke out, Crowley blindsided city bosses by telling a local television interviewer that Los Angeles had failed her department, which she described as understaffed and underfunded.
โMy message is the fire department needs to be properly funded,โ Crowley told the local Fox television channel. โItโs not.โ
An appearance on national TV compounded the rift when she told CNN that budget cuts had directly affected her ability to fight the mammoth fires.
Hours later, Bass hauled Crowley in for a closed-door meeting that ran so late Bass missed a scheduled news briefing.
The next time the two stood together at a press conference, tensions were evident, despite pledges that they were on the same page.
Bassโ move this week comes after weeks of criticism levelled at her.
The former US congresswoman has frequently been the target of residents’ ire in recent weeks after a flat-footed response to the fires, which broke out while she was in Ghana.
Ahead of the January 7 outbreaks, the National Weather Service had been warning that fierce winds and exceedingly dry weather would leave the Los Angeles region at very high risk of a fire.
State and local officials announced they were pre-positioning resources to pounce and try to keep a handle on any blazes, which they expected would spread rapidly in 160km/h winds.
Local and national media extensively carried warnings of the elevated danger.
But at a press conference this week, Bass framed her decision to press ahead with her foreign trip as the result of Crowleyโs failure to warn her of the risk.
โWhat has happened in the two-plus years Iโve been here every time there was a weather emergency, or even a hint of a weather emergency, the chief has called me directly,โ Bass told reporters.
โShe has my cell phone. She knows she can call me 24/7, and she briefed me, and then we would talk about what needed to happen next. That did not happen this time.โ
โ Agence France-Presse