In the months after the Palisades fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation raked in millions of dollars in charitable donations to pay for training and equipment for firefighters, as LAFD leaders publicly complained about not having enough money to keep the city safe.
But some of the funds were quietly spent on something that had little to do with firefighting: a celebrity public relations firm to help LAFD leaders shape their messaging after a disaster in which their missteps figured prominently, The Times has learned.
Neither the LAFD nor the foundation would say how much the charity paid the Lede Company, whose clients include Reese Witherspoon and Charlize Theron, and what exactly the firm did for the department. A Lede representative declined to comment, saying the company does not discuss client matters.
“The LAFD Foundation provided communications support by hiring the Lede Company as part of its mission to provide resources to the LAFD,” Liz Lin, president of the foundation, said in an email. “The Foundation was not involved in the services provided by the Lede Company. Specific details regarding the Department’s use of the Lede Company should be addressed by the LAFD.”
The revelation comes as the LAFD is under heightened scrutiny for altering its after-action report to downplay the city’s failures in preparing for and responding to the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The LAFD declined to answer questions about the work of the PR firm, including whether any changes to the report were made at its direction, vaguely citing federal court proceedings.
Federal prosecutors have charged a former Palisades resident with starting a Jan. 1 fire that reignited into the Palisades fire six days later.
“Any further responses will be evaluated following the conclusion of the federal case and in accordance with legal guidance at that time. Thank you for your understanding that no additional responses will be provided until all related court proceedings have been fully resolved,” the LAFD said in an unsigned email.
The after-action report was meant to spell out mistakes, which included not fully pre-deploying engines to the Palisades amid forecasts of dangerously high winds, and to suggest measures to avoid repeating them. But before the report was even completed, LAFD officials worried about how it would be received, privately forming a “crisis management workgroup” to “create our own narrative” about the fire and its aftermath.
Fire Chief Jaime Moore said he met with Lede in mid-November, on his first or second day at the helm, and thanked them for their work, but that he does not know what precisely they did for the department, which was led by interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva when the report came out on Oct. 8.
“I’m assuming they had something to do with the after-action report, because they’re a PR firm,” Moore said in an interview last week. “I would think a PR firm was going to give advice to the fire chief, because at the time, they didn’t have a director of public information. So my assumption would be they were using a PR firm as the PR director.”
The author of the report, LAFD Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse the public version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”
While Moore admitted that the report was watered down and said he would not allow similar edits to future after-action reports, he said he did not see a benefit in determining who made the changes to the Palisades report.
“I gotta wonder, what is it gonna matter to me? Because I can see what the original report says. I can see what we put out to the public. I can see where the original report and the public report aim to fix the same thing,” he said. “They aim to correct where we could have been better. And it identifies … the steps that are going to be necessary to make those corrective actions.”
Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not respond to questions about whether she met with Lede, what direction its publicists gave city officials and what role the company had in preparing or editing the after-action report.
On its website, Lede boasts of representing “some of the biggest names and brands in entertainment, fashion, beauty & wellness, … advocacy, media, nonprofit and related industries.” In addition to Witherspoon and Theron, its client page includes photos of actors Kerry Washington and Rami Malek and singers Rihanna and Pharrell Williams. The firm represents brands such as Isabel Marant, Clinique and Hennessy Cognac and includes a strategic corporate communications division.
In the wake of the fire, Rick Caruso, the businessman and one-time L.A. mayoral candidate, committed $5 million to the Fire Department Foundation, in annual increments of $1 million.
One of Caruso’s executives sits on the board of the foundation, which bills itself as “the official nonprofit arm of the LAFD” and lists net assets of $12.3 million on its tax return for fiscal 2023-24, the most recent available. According to its website, it “provides vital equipment and funds programs that help the LAFD save lives and build resilient communities.“
Caruso told The Times on Tuesday that the foundation should disclose the amount and specific purpose of its spending on Lede, and that he will ask for an audit to ensure that none of his initial $1-million donation went to the company.
“The donation that our family made to the foundation is specifically intended for and limited to the protection and service of the city of Los Angeles,” said Caruso, who built popular malls like the Grove and the Americana at Brand. “I don’t want the money we donated going to a PR firm.”
Caruso, who has been fiercely critical of Bass and the city during the fire and its aftermath, added that he will withhold future payments to the foundation if an audit is not performed.
“Transparency is critical,” he said. “It’s part of the fiduciary responsibility of the foundation to the taxpayers and the city of Los Angeles to be completely transparent.”
Austin Beutner, a former Los Angeles Unified school superintendent who is running for mayor, said the failure by Bass, the LAFD and the foundation to explain the Lede Company’s role is “an unconscionable lack of transparency.”
“People died. Tens of thousands of people lost their homes, along with tens of thousands of people who lost their jobs. We owe them the truth,” said Beutner, whose home was severely damaged in the fire and who has called for an independent investigation into the city’s preparations for and response to the fire.
Laurie Styron, executive director and chief executive of CharityWatch, a Chicago-based watchdog of nonprofit organizations, said the foundation “should be excited about” disclosing specifically how it is spending donor money, including on the PR company.
“The fact that they’re being cagey about it is eyebrow-raising,” she said.
In a brief interview this month, Bass told The Times that she did not work with the Fire Department on changes to the after-action report, nor did the agency consult her about any changes.
“That’s a technical report. I’m not a firefighter,” she said.
A spokesperson previously said that Bass’ office did not demand changes to the drafts and only asked the LAFD to confirm the accuracy of items such as how the weather and the department’s budget factored into the disaster.
“The report was written and edited by the Fire Department,” the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said in an email in December. “We did not red-line, review every page or review every draft of the report.”
LAFD Assistant Chief Kairi Brown wrote in a July email to eight others, including Villanueva, that the goal of the internal crisis management team “is to collaboratively manage communications for any critical public relations issue that may arise. The immediate and most pressing crisis is the Palisades After Action Report.”
“With significant interest from media, politicians, and the community, it is crucial that we present a unified response to anticipated questions and concerns,” Brown wrote. “By doing so, we can ensure our messaging is clear and consistent, allowing us to create our own narrative rather than reactive responses.”
Cook emailed his final draft to Villanueva a few weeks later. Over the next two months, the report went through a series of edits — behind closed doors and without Cook’s involvement.
Cook’s version highlighted the failure to require firefighters to stay for an additional shift and to fully pre-deploy in the Palisades as a major mistake, noting that it was an attempt to be “fiscally responsible” that went against the department’s policy and procedures.
The department’s final report stated that the pre-deployment measures for the Palisades and other fire-prone locations went “above and beyond” the LAFD’s standard practice. The Times analyzed seven drafts of the report obtained through a records request and disclosed the significant deletions and revisions.
The report only briefly mentioned the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which the LAFD failed to fully extinguish. The Times found that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area despite complaints by crews that the ground was still smoldering.
After the Times report, Bass directed Moore to commission an independent investigation into the LAFD’s handling of the earlier fire.
Moore said he has opened an internal investigation into the Lachman fire through the LAFD’s Professional Standards Division, which probes complaints against department members. He said he requested the Fire Safety Research Institute, which is reviewing last January’s wildfires at the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom, to include the Lachman fire as part of its analysis, and the institute agreed.
Pringle is a former Times staff writer.
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