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View Winners → News Jan 18, 2022
Photo courtesy of Tony Hisgett via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
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Mayor Eric Garcetti will announce Tuesday his plans to appoint Deputy Chief Kristin Crowley to be the first woman to lead the Los Angeles Fire Department as chief.
The mayor will announce the appointment alongside City Council President Nury Martinez in a 9 a.m. news conference at the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center.
Crowley already made history within the LAFD when she became the city’s first female fire marshal in 2016.
“I really had no idea I wanted to become a firefighter. I was actually pre-med in college on my way to become an orthopedic surgeon. I went to EMT school, got my paramedic license — and that was to prep for medical school — did my ride outs with the fire department, and after that, that’s exactly what I knew I wanted to do,” Crowley said in a 2021 video from the Los Angeles Fire Department celebrating Crowley being the department’s first woman fire marshal.
She took the firefighters’ exam in 1998 and placed among the top 50 scores out of 16,000 applicants, according to the department.
Crowley rose through the ranks as firefighter, firefighter paramedic, engineer, fire inspector, captain I, captain II, battalion chief, assistant chief, fire marshal and deputy chief.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas was already planning to retire.
Crowley, if confirmed as the department’s first female fire chief, would lead the agency that has recently come under fire for allegations of a culture of racism, sexism, retaliation and abuse endured by women at the department. On Oct. 19, Fire Commissioner Rebecca Ninburg called on the mayor to remove Terrazas as chief, saying, “culture starts at the top and leaders set the tone.”
The day before Ninburg sent the letter to Garcetti, the Los Angeles Women in the Fire Service, an association of female firefighters, had a news conference to call for the chief’s removal. The association’s president Kris Larson said Terrazas had brushed off the incidents as “one-offs or pockets.”
Garcetti issued a statement to City News Service after the news conference saying he has “full confidence” in Terrazas and that he “has done an excellent job of leading and rebuilding our fire department during some of our toughest days ever.”
Terrazas said in a statement to City News Service in October that he met with the Los Angeles Women in the Fire Service and discussed collaborative initiatives to improve the work environment and protect them.
