Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles abruptly removed the city’s fire chief on Friday, seeking to end the increasing acrimony between the two officials in the weeks since a wildfire devastated the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Ms. Bass said in a statement that she had removed Kristin Crowley, the chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, effective immediately. The announcement came after Ms. Bass said publicly that she herself made a mistake in leaving the country and traveling to Ghana days before the fires broke out. For weeks, she has privately told friends that she never would have left had...