LA Wildfires 2025: Clip of Northern Ireland Sky News journalist cornering LA Mayor Karen Bass about cuts to fire service viewed 'millions of times'

Portadown man David Blevins, Senior Ireland Correspondent with Sky News, held her to account in the midst of his harrowing assignment to Los Angeles.

According to the LA Times, a 4 December memo by LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley stated that a $7-million overtime cut implemented by LA Mayor Karen Bass had “severely limited" the department’s capacity to deal with wildfires.

At least 25 people have so far been killed in the deadly fires with 200,000 being displaced.

The LA Times says Bass left Los Angeles on 4 January - just as windstorm warnings intensified - to attend an event in Ghana.

The paper added that "apocalyptic fires had been ravaging Los Angeles for more than 24 hours” when she stepped off a plane and into “a now-viral encounter that may come to define her mayoralty”.

"As an Irish reporter who happened to be on her flight hurled questions at her, the mayor of the nation’s second-largest metropolis stood silent and seemingly paralyzed."

David Blevins asked her: "Fire chiefs say they are stretched to the limit and running out of water - Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning?

"Do you regret cutting the fire dept budget by millions of dollars madam mayor?

"Do you think you should have been visiting Ghana while this was unfolding back home?"

Bass stared forward silently for several minutes during the encounter – 0n 8 January – before making her escape.

Mr Blevins, told the News Letter the clip has been viewed "tens of millions of times".

He added: "Americans seem to be astounded by the fact that a journalist kept asking questions, but isn't that our job?"

What people in NI are most likely to miss, he says, is the impact on the poorest of people in LA.

"People often think California is the home of the rich and famous but in the area we were covering fires have destroyed very poor neighbourhoods too. Many had little more than the roof over their heads and even that's gone now."

The area that was evacuated was about the size of NI.

"The scale of it is incomprehensible. We're relying on aerial pictures to reflect the vastness."

He is currently seconded to support the Sky News in the USA, and recently covered the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Joe Biden's exit from the election and Trump's election victory.

The Portadown man had been standing as close as 50 yards from the edge of the lethal wildfires, equipped with safety equipment and respirators.

At that point he was staying 20 minutes away in the city, but when they drove back to the front their mobiles "blasted out" the evacuation alert, which he described as chilling".

A man who occasionally wears his faith on his sleeve, he says that seeing the disaster up close has in no way undermined it.

In the midst of the "unthinkable tragedy" he has seen "the best of humanity" and "dozens of faith-based organisations amid the rubble in every suburb" he adds.