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‘Why Wasn’t There Any Water?’: Pacific Palisades Resident Lights Into Karen Bass Over ‘Deficient’ Response To Wildfire

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A Los Angeles-area resident criticized Democratic Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles Thursday, saying the city’s response to devastating wildfires was “deficient and unfortunate.”

Wildfires devastated multiple Los Angeles-area jurisdictions, leaving at least five people dead and destroying hundreds of buildings. Rachel Darvish told “Wake Up America” co-host Sharla McBride that she never received an “evacuation notice.”

“I didn’t vote for Karen Bass. I did not vote for her. It has nothing to do with what I’ve done or what anyone has done,” Darvish said. “What is important now is — is when I was at my house, just peacefully working and turning around and getting a notification, walking out of my house and seeing the blazes that you see on — on the screen right now, what is disappointing to me is — is that the response time was so deficient and unfortunate that we have an — an enormous amount of damage that could have been avoided. That’s the unfortunate part. The other sad part about this is I’m a native. I was born and raised in Pacific Palisades. And to go back, I don’t know if that’s going to be possible.”

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Bass was in Ghana as part of a delegation when the wildfires broke out. The city cut the Los Angeles Fire Department’s (LAFD) budget by almost $20 million in 2024, with the bulk of the cuts hitting the department’s operational supplies.

“We have leaders that need to be held accountable for what happened. The buck starts and stops with the mayor. That is something that we all know. There is — there is nothing around that,” Darvish said. “So I’m disappointed to see the mayor, Karen Bass to ignore requests for — for acknowledgement of what she’s done. That’s disappointing as well.”

“I could go on and on. The fire hydrants, why wasn’t there any water in the fire hydrants? When I was leaving my home, which was at around 11, 11:30, I didn’t get an evacuation notice,” Darvish continued.

Los Angeles officials have come under fire over LAFD’s pursuit of a “racial equity plan” under Chief Kristin Crowley, whose biography touts her as “the first female and LGBTQ Fire Chief” in the agency’s history.

“I did not see a fire truck. I wasn’t able to get a notification from — from Karen Bass’s office telling me to leave,” Darvish said. “I went because that’s what I saw. I saw what you are seeing on the screen right now. And I couldn’t have my family be victimized by poor decisions. So I had to make the decision to rush out of there on my own.”