EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Text messages that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sent and received as the Palisades Fire sparked Jan. 7 surfaced this week, according to the LA Times, providing additional insight into the early stages of the disaster response.

Bass had attended the inauguration of the Ghanaian president earlier that day as part of a Biden administration delegation. Since then, the mayor has faced criticism about her initial absence and her leadership since the crisis began. Bass ousted Crowley as fire chief on Feb. 21, a decision that has also caused divisiveness.

The LA Times obtained Bass' texts messages through a public records request filed on Jan. 10. The mayor's office had recently stated that there weren't any responsive records since Bass' messages were set to auto-delete every 30 days.

More recently, the mayor’s office said it was able to recover deleted messages using "specialized technology" and provided roughly 125 messages. Some were "redacted and/or withheld" based on exemptions to the California Public Records Act, according to the Times.

The messages show how Bass communicated with her staff and across levels of government, trying to marshal federal resources as the conflagration exploded into what became one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

Just after she emerged from the plane back in LA, Bass was cornered by Sky News reporter David Blevins, who was aboard her flight. As seen in Blevins' X post, she appears to merely stare forward while Blevins grilled her with questions about being in Africa during the start of the wildfire.

For a thorough timeline of the text messages, visit here.