The Los Angeles City Council voted overwhelmingly against reinstating fired Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass fired Crowley on Feb. 21 over her handling of January’s wildfires, the most destructive in U.S. history. Crowley appealed the decision a week later but failed to sway the city council at a hearing on Tuesday.

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The city council upheld her firing in a 13-2 vote, ABC News reported.

Under questioning, Crowley denied Bass’s main accusations, including details about the claim that she ordered 1,000 firefighters be sent home on the morning the Los Angeles wildfires broke out. She argued that a lack of resources for the fire department prompted the order.

“We did not have enough apparatus to put them on,” she said. “Because of the budget cuts and lack of investments in our fleet maintenance, over 100 of our fire engines, fire trucks, and ambulances sat broken down in our maintenance yards, unable to be used to help during one of the worst wildfire events in our history.”

Crowley offered another explanation for Bass’s other major accusation, that she refused to conduct an after-action report, on similar grounds.

“I said that the LAFD is not capable, nor do we have the proper resources, to adequately conduct an after-action report for the Palisades Fire due to the sheer magnitude, scope, and complexity of the incident,” Crowley told the city council Tuesday.

“We are already understaffed, under-resourced, under-funded, and based on my knowledge of the LAFD’s resources and capabilities, I recommended simply to collaborate with Gov. [Gavin] Newsom’s already selected and funded agency, Fire Safety Research Institute,” she added.

Crowley will stay with the department, exercising her civil service rights to stay at a lower rank, according to Bass’s office.

While Bass praised Crowley’s leadership in January, she blamed the former fire chief for the city’s alleged mishandling of firefighting efforts.

“Acting in the best interests of Los Angeles’s public safety, and for the operations of the Los Angeles Fire Department, I have removed Kristin Crowley as fire chief,” Bass said at a Feb. 21 press conference. “We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch. Furthermore, a necessary step to an investigation was the president of the Fire Commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after-action report on the fires. The chief refused.

“These require her removal,” she added. “The heroism of our firefighters, during the Palisades Fire and every single day, is without question. Bringing new leadership to the Fire Department is what our city needs.”

Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva, a 41-year Los Angeles Fire Department veteran, assumed the position of interim fire chief.

Bass has come under heavy criticism for her own handling of the fires, which began while she was away in Ghana. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former 2024 presidential running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has begun heavily financially backing an effort to recall the mayor. While the obstacles to such an effort are significant, some believe the wildfires may push enough people to make it viable.

“Generally speaking, recalls are uphill battles because, by definition, you’re trying to fire somebody who you just hired, and you need something fairly cataclysmic to happen in order to get a successful recall,” Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told the New York Times. “In this case, we did have something cataclysmic.”

KAREN BASS FIRES LOS ANGELES FIRE CHIEF AFTER PRAISING HER LEADERSHIP IN JANUARY

The Los Angeles wildfires were the costliest in U.S. history. The fires ravaged wealthy suburban areas, resulting in unprecedented damage. A preliminary estimate from AccuWeather in mid-January found that the damage valued between $135 billion and $150 billion.

Beginning on Jan. 7 amid dry conditions and unusually high winds, the fires ravaged the California coast for weeks, requiring a response from an international coalition of 51,818 emergency personnel, according to Cal Fire. The flames burned 57,636 acres, destroyed 16,255 structures, and killed at least 29 people. The blaze was fully contained at the beginning of February.