Los Angeles Fire Chief Christine Crowley said it was just after noon Friday, four days after the deadly Palisades fire, when it appeared to suddenly explode.
“I've been in this seat for three years and I'm sounding the alarm — we need more,” Crowley said Fox LA's Gigi Graciette During extended direct placement. “We are crying out for our firefighters to get the proper funding to do our jobs. My job as chief is to make sure my voice is heard.
“Has the city of Los Angeles missed you?” Gracciot pressed her almost 13 minutes into the interview, when Crowley took a deep breath, flashed a bewildered smile to the camera, and finally said: “Yes.”
It was a story he pitched to NBC's Robert Kovacik, and he would repeat it to CNN's Jake Tapper and then to CBS's Norah O'Donnell until he was summoned. City Hall By late Friday, he is certain to be axed.
To some, the self-immolating media blitz showed Crowley was willing to speak truth to power and stand by his troops amid one of the worst urban firestorms in California history.
To others, it was a desperate act by a troubled chief whose barrier-breaking ascent — the first female and first openly LGBTQ+ firefighter — has now undermined his authority, with critics calling him an incompetent “DEI hire.” An increasingly politicized disaster.
On Monday, Crowley received an unsigned letter that echoed claims filtered from his own current and former chiefs of staff, right-wing commentators and social media. The letter encouraged her to take television interviews while the city burned.
“I believe he should have been focused solely on managing the emergency,” Fire Commissioners Chairman Zenithia Hadley Hayes told The Times after reading the letter. “I agree with that.”
Some have also criticized Crowley's handling of the Palisades disaster. The Times says As the wind picked up early on 7 January, he could have made more tactical use of available engines and had 1,000 firefighters for a second shift.
Still, to the firefighters with boots on the ground in the Palisades, his “expulsion” cemented Crowley as a folk hero.
“It went viral in the LAFD,” said Freddy Escobar, president of the United Firefighters of the City of Los Angeles. “Everyone was very shocked, but very happy and excited. They support her 110%.
“This is the only fire chief who has spoken out against those who appointed him,” said Capt. Chuang Ho, another union leader. “If that doesn't show courage, I don't know what does.”
Crowley declined an interview request for this story, but her colleagues noted that she is one of the few women in a field dominated by men. He is one of the few senior officers to have served in every role he now commands, from paramedic to engineer to fire inspector.
“Unlike many of her male counterparts, she has risen through the ranks,” Ho said.
Crowley's wife, Hollyn Bullock, is a retired firefighter and was the first woman to hold the job of machine operator, considered the most difficult job in the service.
Crowley got his start on the city floor Station 11One of the busiest ladders in the country and a necessary stop for firefighters on the rise in Los Angeles.
“He's a firefighter leader,” said Orange County Fire Commission Capt. Lauren Andrade, president of Equity on Fire. “She's always going to advocate for her people.”
Here are some of Crowley's specific claims about LAFD funding: There is a lot of controversyAnd the department's tactics on the morning of the Palisades fire are sure to come under further scrutiny in the coming weeks.
But many women firefighters say the CM has been made a scapegoat for situations beyond the department's control, from grounded air tankers to dry reservoirs.
“There were 100-mph winds and a major compromise in the water supply, critical infrastructure she didn't have access to — but is that because she's a lesbian?” Andrade said. “His strategy and tactics are completely consistent with how other departments have dealt with these events.”
By Thursday, the department had closed ranks around Crowley with both UFLAC and the Los Angeles Fire Department Chiefs Assn. Writing public letters of support.
Still, in the midst of the worst disaster to hit L.A. in a generation, many see a reflection of the crisis that put Crowley at the top of the department in the first place.
'You Won't Break Me'
When Crowley was appointed in early 2022, few favored the position of LA City Fire Chief.
Regression from Vaccination mandates Still shook up the industry. Many top officials had retired or resigned. A group of black firefighters sued, accusing it of being a “good ol' white boys' club.” Meanwhile, a locally commissioned 2021 survey showed a crisis of confidence, with less than 30% of sworn members saying they had confidence in senior leadership.
The same survey showed that more than half Sworn women felt Bullying and Harassment They were the biggest problem in the field.
“I don't take it lightly,” Crowley said in a 2022 interview Gisele Fernandez Spectrum News. “Thirty years of talking about it, 30 years of talking about it – now it's about action.”
Fewer than 5% of firefighters in the United States are women. In Los Angeles, the fraction is even smaller: There are currently about 120 commissioned women in the LAFD, which has a total workforce of 3,500. That's less than half the department's size, compared to San Francisco's more than 250 female firefighters.
“There's such a misogynistic, sexist bias in the fire service, and some people absolutely thrive on it — it's so toxic,” said retired Sacramento Fire Capt. Erica Enzlin. Golden State Women in Fire Service. “She tried to do something to stop that culture from being fostered.”
At the heart of that sexism is the belief that women simply aren't strong enough to do a firefighter's job.
“On your worst day, it feels warm and fuzzy to think that someone is going to throw you over their shoulder and carry you,” but that's not what firefighters actually do, Andrade said.
The brute force needed to fight wildfires is minimal in the age of majority calls. Emergency Medical Services, she said.
“Yes, you have to be physically strong, and yes, every female firefighter went through the same academy,” Andrade said. “Women are very strong. This is an old-school argument for maintaining the status quo.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marone has been spared Crowley's intense public scrutiny, he and others note.
Crowley generally avoided questions about sexism or bullying, saying she had an instinctive sense of how to deal with men who harassed her at work. During tough times, she said, Crowley drew strength from her mother, who raised three children alone after her father died.
“Watching my mom go through it, I really set out that way,” she told Fernandez in 2022. “That strength, and that ability to push through, really made a big mark on me.”
He also draws on his years as a student athlete — first in his hometown of Green Bay, Wis. at an all-girls high school in , then played basketball and soccer at an all-girls St. Mary's College In Indiana.
“Being an athlete, I'm not going to give up — you're not going to break me,” Crowley said.
Many who knew her said her rise to fame at Macko Fire Station 11 may have saved her from some of the department's sexism. Despite her short stature — Crowley is about average height for a woman — she and Bullock have long been celebrated for their toughness, saving part of Bullock's mother's neighborhood from the 2018 Woolsey Fire armed only with garden hoses and spare fire gear. Car.
“She was one of those people who said, 'I want to be like her when I grow up,'” Enzlin said.
He and others watched the mother of three with pride and confidence as she rose through the ranks of the nation's third-largest fire department.
“I was in awe when he became the fire chief,” said Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and CEO Lt. Tina Giller. Triple FA National Women's Liaison Committee. “She was like my hero.”
Like other female firefighters interviewed by The Times, Enslin and Giller know Crowley through professional groups, training programs and women's fire camps.
Crowley was an active, dedicated mentor, the girls said. She inspired young acolytes to envision a career in the department and helped career firefighters develop gender-specific skills, such as using their legs to pull a fire hose instead of relying on upper-body strength like men.
Critics have sought to portray these groups and their efforts as manifestations of the push for diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI, as it's often abbreviated — that has swept corporate America over the past five years.
Diversification of the LAFD and other departments followed Consent Orders It started in the 1970s and 80s.
“The women's group was part of that whole generation,” said San Francisco Fire Department Assistant Deputy Chief Julie Maw. United Fire Service Women of San Francisco. “Over the years we've become one of the largest and most active because we use training as a way to develop members.”
Crowley filled some of her leadership positions with the same women she worked with Los Angeles Women in the Fire Service – including Vice Principal Christine LarsonA long-time critic of the industry came under fire this week after an old clip that appeared to vilify victims resurfaced on right-wing social media.
Crowley has replaced older players with younger, historically marginalized representatives amid disruptions in his top ranks. A recent lawsuit described his second-in-command, Vice President Orrin Sanders, as “African American, gay.”
Critics say the moves are a distraction from the department's core mission of firefighting.
Her supporters say the criticism is a fig leaf for the sexism they've endured their entire lives.
“DEI — that's part of what she's worried about, but it's not the main thing she's worried about,” Cuyler said. “I'm tired of people saying women can't do this job.”
Times staff writer David Janiser contributed to this report.