Mayor Investigates Who Let Her Go to Ghana As Fires Threatened

LA Mayor Karen Bass says she’s investigating why she was allowed to go to Ghana as the threat of LA fires loomed. She is investigating someone else for something she did.

According to city data, Bass traveled to Ghana to attend the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama as devastating flames and high winds burned over 57,000 acres of land throughout her city.

She spoke with Fox 11 host Elex Michaelson about the investigation into who was responsible for letting her go.

Mayor Bass doesn’t know why she didn’t know more about what was going on.

“First of all, when the White House called and asked me if I would represent [former President Joe Biden], I said yes; it was a very, very short trip over a weekend and two business days,” Bass said.

“We need to look at everything about the preparation and all of that for the fires because I think when we evaluate that, we will find that although there were warnings that I frankly wasn’t aware of, I think our preparation wasn’t what it typically is …

“That type of preparation didn’t happen. If it had, I will tell you, Elex, I wouldn’t have even gone to San Diego, let alone leave the country. I don’t know; I mean, I think that’s one of the things we need to look at,” Bass said.

As mayor, she was supposed to know more about it: ask questions and prepare. Fires after dry weather with high winds coming are not a mystery for California.

“So two, investigations are taking place. One is internal to the city, and that’s the fire commission because that’s mandated by the city charter. So the commission will hire an outside entity to examine everything, the pre-deployment, why firefighters were sent home, all of that that should have taken place that didn’t, and also [Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom] has contracted with the Fire Safety Research Institute which is a national institute that investigated what happened with the fires in Maui. So everything that happened, including that, needs to be examined.”

Bass feels terrible.

“But I will tell you that I felt absolutely terrible about not being here for my city and not being here for my family, who was impacted by the fires as well,” the mayor continued. “So when I say it was a mistake, absolutely, the idea that I was not present was very painful.”

Bass made no effort to come right back when the warnings became public.

When a Sky News reporter asked her about it on her way home, she wouldn’t say a word. Bass had promised before the election that she would not travel abroad, and she has traveled multiple times.

NEW: LA Mayor Karen Bass says she’s investigating why she was allowed to go on a trip to Ghana days before the LA fires.

Investigating someone else for something you did is wild.

Bass: That level of preparation really didn’t happen. So it didn’t reach that level to me. No one… pic.twitter.com/k7DtUqIRJy

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 19, 2025

The Timeline:

Bass traveled to Ghana to attend the inauguration of the nation’s new president on Jan. 4, a day after the National Weather Service issued a fire weather watch for Los Angeles. She landed on Jan. 5., and later that day, the weather service issued a red flag warning.

Warnings escalated several times on Jan 6., becoming a “particularly dangerous situation” by the late afternoon in Los Angeles. That evening Bass posted her first statement on X about the fires, sharing information that was out of date by a few hours.

The inauguration ceremony in Ghana began at around 10 a.m. local time on Jan. 7, or around 2 a.m. Pacific Time in Los Angeles. A few hours after it ended, now 10:30 a.m. in L.A., the Palisades Fire broke out.

Social media photos showed Bass posing for photographs at a reception hosted by the United States ambassador to Ghana at around 12 p.m. L.A. time, an hour and a half after the fire began, The Los Angeles Times reported.

A spokesperson for the mayor told The Los Angeles Times that Bass and the U.S. delegation stopped at a reception on the way to the airport but said they were on their way back to the U.S. on a military flight by 1 p.m. Los Angeles time on Jan. 7.

She arrived on January 8 after 1,000 structures burned and 70,000 people were evacuated.

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