Los Angeles Fire Department Deputy (LAFD) Chief Kristine Larson has come under metaphorical fire from the public as Los Angeles burns from literal fire. A now-viral video championing the role of female firefighters shows Larson shifting the blame onto fire victims if she can’t carry them out to safety.

“Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out,” Larson quips in a video now making its rounds on social media.

As four major fires continue to ravage Los Angeles County, leaving at least 10 people dead and thousands without homes, Larson’s comments are quite out-of-touch to the Angelenos who’ve lost everything. Worse is the realization that the higher-ups at LAFD are more focused on boosting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) than preparing for catastrophic fires.

LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley, hired in 2022, made DEI a chief focus of her leadership, launching a DEI bureau in 2023 to help implement DEI hiring quotas, AKA, hiring female and LGBTQ+ firefighters.

“The goal is to fracture that status we’ve held, organizationally, as this hardcore, traditional fire service, that all we do is fire,” she told her alma mater in a glowing profile.

Larson is no different. A 33-plus year veteran of the LAFD, she oversees its Equity and Human Resources Bureau.

Her profile states that she “has completed a DEI certification program through Cornell University and is participating in the International Association of Fire Chief’s Diversity Executive Leadership Program which aims to advance DEI within the fire service, with a cohort of members from around the Country.”

If advancing DEI is Larson’s top priority, it makes sense that she would make identity a focus of her recruitment efforts.

“You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it’s a medical call or a fire call, that looks like you. It gives that person a little more ease, knowing that somebody might understand their situation better,” she said in the same viral video.

This tunnel-vision focus on identity is a slap in the face to the victims of the four fires raging in Southern California. If people are trapped inside a burning house, they don’t care about the race, gender, or sexual identity of the person rescuing them. All they care about is the person’s ability to rescue them. In short, they want a “hardcore, traditional fire service.”

Such tone-deaf comments point to the ineptitude and unseriousness of LAFD leadership. They are failing the people of Los Angeles when their focus is anything but the safety of their residents. As with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who approved a $17.6 million budget cut to the city’s fire department which severely limited its ability to prepare and respond to fires, both Larson and Crowley should resign from their posts. Angelenos need leaders who espouse common sense.