Kristin Crowley Is Los Angeles's First Out, First Woman Fire Chief
Los Angeles Blade reports. She will begin her duties as chief March 26, when predecessor Ralph Terrazas retires.Before the vote, Crowley told the council she was “truly honored” as well as “humbled and proud” to be appointed fire chief, according to L.A.
TV station KABC. Her confirmation came on the first day of Women’s History Month.Crowley has been with the department 22 years, having been a firefighter, paramedic, engineer, fire inspector, captain, battalion chief, assistant chief, fire marshal, and deputy chief.
She was Los Angeles’s first woman fire marshal, a post she assumed in 2016. When she took the firefighters’ exam in the late 1990s, her score was in the top 50 out of 16,000 applicants.Crowley and her wife, retired firefighter Hollyn Bullock, received a letter of special commendation from the fire department in 2020 for their work fighting a wildfire in the Malibu Canyon area in 2018.
They had planned to simply help a relative evacuate from the neighborhood, but they ended up convincing the other residents of the block to evacuate as well and then stayed 16 hours to keep the flames away from the homes there.
