As the first home in Pacific Palisades was set ablaze on Tuesday morning, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass was absent from the city.
Neither was she there when a second brush fire broke out in the Altadena area that evening, nor a third in Sylmar.
Instead, Bass, a 71-year-old former physician and congresswoman, was in Ghana.
The mayor was selected by President Joe Biden as one of his four-member presidential delegation to attend the inauguration of the African nation’s incoming president, John Dramani Mahama.
As a Democratic representative for California, Bass chaired the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations between 2019 and 2022.
Despite reports of a looming fire weather on Friday afternoon – with the National Weather Service warning that conditons leant themselves to “rapid fire spread and extreme fire behavior” if ignition occurred – by Saturday, Bass was on a plane to Ghana’s capital Accra.
Three fires – Pacific, Eaton and Hurst – were racing across southern California by Tuesday evening. Hurricane-force winds of up to 100mph were fanning flames overnight, causing the blaze to travel a rate of five football fields per minute.
Bass, meanwhile, attended Mahama’s inauguration, leaving City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson as LA’s acting mayor when the three fires broke out.
The mayor received a raft of criticism over the timing of her trip from those on both sides of the political aisle, as well as MAGA faithful and Silicon Valley stalwart, Elon Musk, who called her “utterly incompetent”.
As Bass touched down on US soil on Wednesday morning with parts of her city turned to ash, Sky News reporter David Blevins peppered her with questions about her Ghana visit.
When asked about being absent from LA when citizen’s homes began to smolder, the interviewer was met with silence.
“Do you regret cutting the fire department’s budget by millions, madame mayor?,” Blevins prodded with an outstretched arm holding a microphone.
“Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today,?” the interviewer continued.
In another probe, Blevins asked: “No apology for them (Los Angeles residents)? Do you think you should have been visiting Ghana while this was unfolding back home?”
Bass refrained from answering a single question, with her face remaining emotionless and her eyes almost exclusively glued to the floor.
After her silence, Bass told reporters on Wednesday afternoon that she “took the fastest route back, which included being on a military plane”.
Despite being away on diplomatic duties, Bass had been a constant presence on social media, with her X account had been sharing updates on the fire, evacuation orders and emergency shelters.
“There is an expected destructive and potentially life-threatening windstorm starting Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon,” she wrote on X late on Monday evening ahead of fire breaking out.
While an update on Tuesday evening read: “Firefighters are now actively and aggressively responding to the #PalisadesFire with support from regional partners.”
Both Bass’ deputy chief of staff Celine Cordero and LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger maintained that the mayor was involved in decision making throughout her trip, according to the Los Angeles Times.
However, with Bass away from LA, her opponent in the 2022 mayoral election, Rick Caruso, filled the void in the press, slamming the city’s handling of the disaster across multiple news outlets.
Caruso, whose daughter lost her home in the fires, told Fox 11: “We’ve got a mayor that’s out of the country, and we’ve got a city that’s burning.”
