Watch an emotional Spencer Pratt announce that he is running for Mayor of LA.

Reese Trepanier was a student at Pacific Palisades Charter High School when the Palisades Fire broke out. She ended up graduating in a hybrid program. The ceremony was held at the Hollywood Bowl.

Trepanier described how all her friends are now scattered across Southern California in areas like San Diego and Santa Clarita.

"It's been a year and barely any changes have happened," she said. "We don't see these buildings as burned buildings. We grew up in this town. This is our home. This is our community."

"Our hope is with all these people being here today, we won't be forgotten. We don't want Palisades to die."

Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva took the stage, saying the people responsible for handling the response were nowhere to be found. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “Every single one of them could have been prevented.”

"One person was responsible for evacuations in Los Angeles, and most people don’t even know that," Villanueva said. "It was the Sheriff of Los Angeles County. He was on vacation in Carlsbad while your mayor was on vacation or doing whatever."

Villanueva arrived at the protest with a printout of a Los Angeles Times article from when he was removed as the head of emergency operations in 2020.

“You got to have people in charge who hold themselves responsible for the outcome and don’t pass the buck," he said. "You can delegate authority, but you can’t delegate responsibility. And that’s what [Newsom and Bass] trying to do today.”

Louise Fraser, a nurse who lost her home in the Palisades Fire, said the "worst thing is the blanket hat been pulled between us and local leadership, and we've seen how terrible it is, and that's really depressing."

"Newsom is too busy running for president to pay attention."

John Moreland, a 79-year-old retiree, had one word to describe the response to the Palisaded Fire: abysmal.

"The preparation before the fire was abysmal, the performance during the fire was abysmal, and the performance after the fire was abysmal," he said.

"If Newsom appears here in this crowd, he would have to leave," Moreland said. "He's afraid to come here. These people are absolutely angry. Every person I've talked to is really angry about the way they've treated us."

"Bass would get boos, too, with this crowd."

Jennifer Herges, a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing students, attended the protest on behalf of her adoptive 100-year-old grandmother who was forced to flee her home during the fire.

"She's living in an apartment in Playa Vista," Herges said. "She won't come back to the Palisades. She didn't want to leave her home, but her caretaker made her evacuate. Her wish was to die here. She had built a community of so many people. She loved the Palisades. And I just want politicians and the city of Los Angeles to be aware of what they did to this community."

Spencer Pratt announced he will run for mayor of Los Angeles, while speaking at the "They Let Us Burn" protest in Pacific Palisades.

Since losing his home in the Palisades Fire, Pratt has been deeply involved in California politics, influencing legislation on social media and wildfires, and gaining prominence as a powerful voice for his followers.

Pratt's wife Heidi Montag is in attendance and gave an emotional speech to the crowd just before Pratt's announcement.

Political commentator and candidate running for California governor, Steve Hilton, tells The Post, "Pratt's running because he understands the whole system is corrupt and broken. He laid that out just now, and that's exactly what we need. We need outsiders to fight the corruption and get common sense back into California government, into Los Angeles government. He's running to do that in LA. I'm running to do that in California."

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Actor and nearby Brentwood resident Dennis Quaid is in attendance to support 'They Let Us Burn' protesters. Quaid has previously spoken out about his experience during the evacuation of the Palisades Fire, and said he “had it lucky," but so many of his friends lost homes.

When asked if the city and state are doing enough, Quaid responded, "No, no. They never were."

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Protesters are yelling -- "Fire them all — fire them now,” drawing cheers and echoing the anger coursing through the rally.

“Is anyone sick of her smiling?” speaker Jeremy Padawer asked, referring to Mayor Bass, as boos rolled through the crowd. He mocked official explanations that framed the fire as an act of nature...God, brush, too many plants, and rejected claims from Bass and Gov. Newsom that the disaster had nothing to do with leadership choices. Protesters shouted back that it was because of them. Speakers accused Bass and Newsom of standing by as the city burned, walking the area afterward without action. “It burned around them,” the crowd yelled.

Close to 1,000 Pacific Palisades residents turned out today for dueling events so far, a memorial honoring lives lost in the Palisades Fire and the “They Let Us Burn” protest. The message from protesters was blistering: calls for Mayor Karen Bass to be jailed, and accusations that the city, county, and state failed the community and left it to burn.

Crowd members tell The Post they really feel that the city of Los Angeles, the county of Los Angeles, the state of California and the leadership let them down. Community member Lisa Perez said, "Bass and Newsom, they're playing a real game of monopoly in our beautiful community. And like monopoly, they should, uh, stop, not pass go, and go to jail, because what they're doing is criminal."

Other gatherers expressed that they felt local politicians did nothing during those days. It was a complete failure of leadership that led to this catastrophe. It's been many years coming. The failed policies of the state parks, not maintaining the brush clearance, the fact that there was no water in the reservoirs, that the hydrants ran dry and some weren't even functional, that a large percentage of the fire trucks that should have been deployed here were non-functional or mis-deployed.

Resident Bud Chancellor tells The Post, "It's really important for people to know that not just one, but two reservoirs are out of service in the Palisades. That's over 97% of the constructed water capacity for this area. The rest of the City of Los Angeles should be just as concerned about their water supply as well."

He continued, "I'm- I'm sure they would not come today. The mayor came to a kids' story time at the YMCA Pumpkin Patch a couple of months ago, and that turned into quite a disturbance. So, I'm sure she doesn't want to show up today if- if she had such a reaction at a kids' story time, showing up for that."