Leaked memo reveals LA Mayor Karen Bass demanded her fire department cut an extra $49 million just ONE WEEK before wildfires broke out

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass demanded her Fire Department make an extra $49million of budget cuts last week, a leaked memo revealed.

This cut is already on top of $17.6million of cuts in her latest budget.

The extra cuts, requested just days before fires broke out and devastated swathes of Los Angeles, would have shut down 16 fire stations and crippled the department's ability to respond to emergencies, sources said.

DailyMail.com interviewed current and former senior LAFD officers briefed on the shocking proposed cuts, and exclusively obtained the memo from an LA Fire Department (LAFD) whistleblower who posts on social media under the moniker 'LAFD Watchdog'.

The memo is dated January 6, only a day before the devastating Palisades Fire started.

According to the sources, it was sent from LAFD 'top brass' at City Hall to division chiefs and captains - after a fraught meeting the previous Friday between Chief Kristin Crowley and Mayor Bass.

'The LAFD is still going through a FY [financial year] 2024/2025 $48.8million budget reduction exercise with the CAO [City Attorney's Office],' the document said.

'The only way to provide a cost savings would be to close as many as 16 fire stations (not resources, fire stations); this equates to at least one fire station per City Council District.

'The details of this plan have not yet been developed. This is a worst-case scenario and is NOT happening yet.'

Now more than 54-square-miles are scorched in at least five separate fires, more than 4,000 homes and buildings destroyed, ten dead and more injured.

And the billionaire and celebrity-inhabited neighborhood of Pacific Palisades was almost completely wiped off the map.

But some senior firefighters' blood was already boiling when they received the note from their bosses about proposed budget slashes.

'They did not want this out. It's an internal memo not to be distributed,' one currently-serving 25-year veteran of the Fire Department told DailyMail.com.

'It comes from top brass downtown, City Hall.

'They're trying to allocate more money for the homeless, and they need to start taking from everybody.

'But we already exhausted our budget. It's already tapped. That's why they cut the fire academy in half, so they could save more money. That's why we're not testing if hydrants work any more. We're doing everything we can to save money.

'We have fire engines we can't get parts for. When one breaks down we strip it of parts to put on other fire engines because we can't buy any more parts.

'If you shut down 16 stations, that's about 750 personnel. Then they expect us to take the same call volume. And yesterday we did 3,800 calls, almost twice of what our daily call volume usually is.

'We're already shy 200 paramedics, and we're on the verge of another 200 quitting because we can't do this any more.

'If we don't work overtime, they suspend and threaten to terminate us. It's untenable.'

The sources briefed on the memo said Bass first made the demand for tens of millions from the cash-strapped department in a meeting with Chief Crowley on Friday.

'Bass wanted to cut even more,' one source briefed on the meeting said. 'They asked for $49million more on Friday last week. The Chief said "We don't have it". The Mayor said "Find it".'

Chief Crowley had already warned Bass last month that $17.6million of cuts the mayor successfully steered through a City Council vote had 'severely limited the department's capacity to prepare for, train for and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.'

Crowley wrote the warning in a December 4 memo first reported by NBC LA, highlighting the $7 million reduction in 'overtime variable staffing hours' it caused, which 'adversely affected the Department's ability to maintain core operations, such as [...] training, fire prevention, and community education.' 

The cost of these fires have been enormous. 

One-hundred-and-twenty foot flames have destroyed thousands of homes, businesses, schools and places of worship, causing an estimated $49billion worth of damage so far in communities from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena.

Ferocious winds combined with an extensive drought created the 'perfect storm' for the infernos, which firefighters are struggling to contain.

The Palisades Fire is currently only eight percent contained as firefighters have fought in vain for two days straight to try and stop its spread. 

The Eaton Fire is currently not contained at all, the Kenneth Fire and Hurst Fire are around 35percent contained and the Lidia Fire is 75percent contained. 

Meanwhile, Bass, who was on a trip to Ghana to attend the West African country's presidential inauguration on Tuesday has been heavily criticized for the trip - as a warning was sent out about 'critical' weather conditions days prior.

Bass defended her leadership when asked at a press conference on Thursday and said: 'I just said what I believe is the most important thing for us to do right now. That's going to continued to be my focus.'