LACoFD News

Commonly known as the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Consolidated Fire Protection District of Los Angeles County (CFPD) is a dependent special district.  As a dependent special district, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors acts as the CFPD’s board of directors.  Fire protection districts are governed by the Fire Protection District Law of 1987 (Health & Safety Code, Section 13800 et al).  The CFPD has the additional responsibilities for the Forester & Fire Warden (F&FW).  In 1992, the duties of the F&FW were assigned to the CFPD and those responsibilities are found in the Los Angeles County Code 2.20.

The CFPD has a civilian oversight committee that annually reviews expenditures of the CFPD’s special tax to ensure it is expended in the manner approved by voters in 1997.  Authority for the oversight committee is found in the establishing resolution for the special tax.  The committee has seven members, one each appointed by each member of the Board of Supervisors, one appointed by the City Selection committee, and the director of the Los Angeles County Economy and Efficiency Committee.

Chief Deputy Dawnna B. Lawrence is the first female Chief Deputy of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

In her role as Chief Deputy of Business Operations, Chief Lawrence oversees the Fire Department’s $1.3 billion budget and more than 800 employees in the Administrative, Prevention, and Special Services Bureaus.

Chief Lawrence initially came to the Fire Department in October 2012 as the Deputy Chief of the Administrative Services Bureau, where she served as the financial advisor to Fire Chief Daryl L. Osby in the midst of fiscal challenges, stemming from the 2008 Recession.  In June 2015, Chief Lawrence was appointed to Chief Deputy of Business Operations and continues to work closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure the financial future of the Fire Department is stable and sustainable.

Chief Lawrence is dedicated to creating an inclusive environment for all Fire Department team members through comprehensive action and sustainable policies and practices, in addition to fostering a workforce that is truly representative of the communities we serve.

Prior to joining the Fire Department, Chief Lawrence devoted 20 years climbing the ranks in administrative services at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (DPW), culminating in her appointment to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in 2006.  As CFO, Chief Lawrence was responsible for managing the DPW’s $2 billion operating budget.  Her efforts and achievement earned Chief Lawrence a CFO of the Year nomination in the September 2012 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Earlier in her career, Chief Lawrence spent a collective five years at the Department of Health Services and the Department of the Auditor-Controller.  Chief Lawrence received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from California State University, Fullerton.  She is also a member of the Government Finance Officers Association.

Chief Lawrence and her two sons are long-time residents of South Pasadena.

Deputy Fire Chief William McCloud was hired as a Fire Fighter with Los Angeles County Fire Department in 1986 and has been a Chief Officer for over ten years. As a fire fighter Chief McCloud functioned as a certified Emergency Medical Technician, Licensed Paramedic, a Hazardous Materials Technical Specialist, and a PEER Support Counselor. As a Company Officer Chief McCloud held positions in the Fire Prevention Bureau, implemented the Department’s and the Los Angeles Operational Area’s Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). As a Battalion Chief he served the Cities of Santa Clarita, Palmdale, and Covina. He also helped the Department develop and implement its Professional Performance Section that conducts internal investigation in compliance with the California Fire Fighter Bill of Rights. He is currently assigned, as a Deputy Fire Chief, to the Leadership and Professional Standards Bureau (LPSB). LPSB includes Employee Relations Division, Professional Performance Section, Risk Management Division, Return to Work Section, Organizational Development Division, and the Training Services Division.

As part of his duties as the Deputy Fire Chief of LPSB Chief McCloud has been assigned the task of working with labor organizations, other County Departments, and subject matter experts to develop a Department Wellness Division. The development of the Wellness Division is in response to a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor’s initiative to address suicide as it relates to first responders. The Department’s Wellness Division will focus on improving and maintaining the mental and physical wellness of all Department employees and their families.

Deputy Chief, Christopher M., Anderson has been an Administrative Professional, specializing in financial management for 30 years with the County of Los Angeles. He joined the Fire Department in April 2016, as our Deputy Chief of the Administrative Services Bureau.

Chief Anderson has a reputation as a successful and effective change agent and has been credited with the reengineering of organizations and business processes. His goal is to modernize the Fire Department by introducing technology to improve standard business practices and to ensure administrative and fiscal compliance.

Throughout his career, Chief Anderson has valued his professional relationships with his staff and coworkers and patterns his management principles around investment, collaboration, mentorship and ethical leadership.

Chief Anderson earned his Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University’s Executive Programs from the Graziadio School of Business with a specialty in Management and Organizational Development. Chief Anderson also earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from DeVry Institute of Technology at the height of “Y2K” in 2000.

However, the accomplishments that Chief Anderson is most proud of is his marriage to his wife and being a father to his twin (soon to be adult) daughters.

Deputy Fire Chief Thomas C. Ewald has served in the professional fire services for 33 years. Chief Ewald started his career as a firefighter with the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa Fire Department in 1986. While working in the Midwest, he attended community college and completed paramedic training. Chief Ewald joined the Los Angeles County Fire Department in 1992 where he rose through the ranks serving as firefighter, paramedic, captain, battalion chief, and assistant chief.

Chief Ewald has served as a firefighter paramedic at Universal Studios and West Hollywood; a fire inspector in East Los Angeles ; an apparatus engineer in Carson and Pomona; an engine company captain in Southgate and South Los Angeles; a staff captain for the Central Regional Operations Bureau Deputy; a field battalion chief in El Monte, Commerce, Palos Verdes; the chief of Technical Operations overseeing local, national and international Urban Search and Rescue Operations; assistant chief in Division I covering the South Bay and Catalina Island, and as the assistant chief overseeing the Air and Wildland Division.

During his career, Chief Ewald has been called upon to respond to man-made and natural disasters across the county and worldwide with notable incidents including Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans), Hurricane Dean (Belize), Cyclone Nargis (Camp H.S. Smith Hawaii), 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (Ofunato) , 2011 New Zealand Earthquake (Christchurch) and 2015 Typhoon Maysak (Micronesia).

In November 2017, Chief Ewald was assigned to the Special Services Bureau and was officially promoted to the position of Deputy Fire Chief on December 16, 2017. In his role overseeing the Special Services Bureau, Chief Ewald leads a team of nearly 300 professional staff tasked with maintaining a fleet of more than 1,800 Department’s vehicles and emergency apparatus, 240 facilities, and dispatching more than 1,000 calls for services each day.

Chief Ewald holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Fire Prevention Administration from Cogswell Polytechnical College and a Master’s degree in Leadership from University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy. In 2018, Chief Ewald attended the Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Chief Ewald is currently a qualified Type 2 Operations Section Chief and an Incident Commander for the Department’s Incident Management Team One. Chief Ewald recently concluded a multi-year assignment as a deputy team leader for FEMA’s National Urban Search and Rescue Systems Incident Support Team program.

Chief Ewald resides in Southern California with his wife and four children.

Daryl L. Osby has the distinct honor of serving as the ninth Fire Chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. With an education in business and executive management and a progressive outlook towards the future, Fire Chief Daryl Osby strives to ensure the Department maintains its acclaimed reputation through sharing of best practices with fellow fire agencies and creating an inclusive work environment representative of the diversity of Los Angeles County.

Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby oversees the delivery of fire suppression and life safety services to more than 4.1 million residents and commercial businesses in 59 cities, along 72 miles of coastline, and within all 2,300-square-miles of the County’s unincorporated areas. The Department operates out of 174 fire stations and 24 lifeguard stations, and commissions 4,800 emergency responders and business professionals utilizing an annual budget of just over $1 billion. In addition, the Department provides health hazardous materials and forestry services throughout the County.

Beyond his leadership role within the County of Los Angeles, Fire Chief Daryl Osby also serves as the Chair of FIRESCOPE (FIrefighting REsources of Southern California Organized for Potential Emergencies), which consists of local, State, and Federal fire agencies who coordinate training, incident command, mutual aid, and advisement to the Governor’s office on fire issues. He is also the Region I coordinator for mutual aid for Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, and San Luis Obispo Counties, unifying our local resources during large-scale emergencies. Previously, he served on the California State Board of Fire Services, and is a former member and chair of the Los Angeles County Emergency Preparedness Commission.

Cultivating a workforce that can meet the unique needs of the 21st Century is a challenge that Fire Chief Daryl Osby welcomes. He achieves this through strategic planning, in which his priorities include focusing on the safety and welfare of personnel, ensuring our service delivery model meets the diverse needs of the communities we protect, practicing sound fiscal strategies, preparing communities for major disasters, and developing career pathways for succession planning. Safeguarding the Department’s reputation of excellence and innovation, he invests heavily in our future leaders through youth mentoring programs and stays connected to our residents through his affiliation with several community organizations.

Fire Chief Daryl Osby is an avid fisherman and outdoors enthusiast, and the proud father to his two amazing daughters Stephanie and Nicole.

John R. Todd is a Registered Professional Forester in the State of California and he was employed as a forester by the Los Angeles County Fire Department from 1988 to 2012. In April 2012, John was promoted to the rank of deputy fire chief of the Prevention Services Bureau (PSB). The PSB is comprised of the Fire Prevention Division, the Forestry Division and the Health Hazardous Materials Division. Members of the Bureau serve the citizens of Los Angeles County by completing inspections and educating the community about the benefits of proper safety practices, completing building, sprinkler, and fire alarm plan checks, protecting natural resources, providing conservation education programs and advice to interested groups, using technology to assess weather, fuel moisture, and fire danger, and protecting public health and the environment from accidental releases and improper handling, storage, transportation, and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes.

John received a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources Management from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1988. He has also completed many advanced courses in leadership, the Incident Command System, fire behavior, protection of resources, and urban search and rescue.

Assistant Fire Chief Angel Montoya has served the Los Angeles County Fire Department for over 24 years. His career in the fire service began as a Fire Fighter in January 1986, where he promoted through the ranks serving in the positions of Fire Fighter Paramedic, Fire Fighter Specialist, Fire Captain, Battalion Chief and his current position of Assistant Fire Chief.

On November 1, Chief Montoya began his assignment as the Assistant Fire Chief for Division 8 of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Division 8 provides fire protection and life safety services to 5 cities and 4 unincorporated areas including the City of Diamond Bar. Most recently as Assistant Chief, Chief Montoya was assigned to Division 6 in Huntington Park where he oversaw the daily operations of 6 cities and 6 unincorporated areas.

Prior to that, he gained experience as an Assistant Chief working in the Department’s Technical Services Division, which encompasses training, technical operations, emergency medical services and homeland security sections.

Chief Montoya was instrumental in forming the newly formed Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team and unit. He served as one of the first members to place our Departments USAR unit into service to respond to County-wide specialized heavy and technical rescues.

His service has included being selected as the first Bilingual Public Information Officer for the Department charged with the development and implementation of a Bilingual program. This program enabled our Department to disseminate information to the Spanish-speaking public through multi-media delivery system that included both the print and video media. Chief Montoya also served as a FEMA Task Force Member, where he responded as a team member to our Departments first disaster responses such as the Northridge Earthquake and Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii.

Chief Montoya has always placed service excellence at the upmost importance. Given his new assignment, he will continue that tradition to maintain high standard that are the hallmark of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Deputy Fire Chief Jon O’Brien has worked as a fire service professional for over 26 years. He started his career as a volunteer firefighter with the City of Sierra Madre. After graduating from high school, he completed paramedic training at the Los Angeles County Paramedic Training Institute and was hired by the City of Monrovia as a full-time firefighter/paramedic until he joined the County of Los Angeles in 1999.

Chief O’Brien has served in a number of operational and administrative assignments, and promoted through the ranks to his current position as a Deputy Fire Chief. Along the way, he has worked as a flight medic in the Department’s Air Operations Section, a fire crew supervisor in the Camps Section, a recruit training captain and a field battalion chief.

In April 2014, Chief O’Brien was assigned to the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Division and was responsible for the education and training of the Department’s 3,200 emergency medical technicians and 1,250 paramedics. The following year in November 2015, Chief O’Brien was promoted again to Assistant Fire Chief and assigned to Division VI in the Central Region. In July 2017, he returned as the Acting Deputy Fire Chief to the EMS Bureau and later officially promoted to Deputy Fire Chief in December 2017.

Chief O’Brien received his Associate of Arts degree in fire science at Mount San Antonio Community College and his Bachelor of Science degree in public policy and management at the University of Southern California. He currently represents the Department on the FIRESCOPE Taskforce and the Los Angeles County Measure B Advisory Committee, and also serves as the Deputy Incident Commander on the Los Angeles County Fire Department Incident Management Team 2.

Deputy Fire Chief Vince Peña has been with the Los Angeles County Fire Department since 1981. Chief Peña has held the positions of firefighter, firefighter paramedic, firefighter specialist, fire camp foreman, fire captain, battalion chief, assistant fire chief and deputy fire chief.

As a chief officer, battalion chief assignments have included Battalion 5 in Malibu, Battalion 16 in Covina, Battalion 20 in Inglewood and Battalion 2 in San Dimas. He also served as the camp section battalion chief for the paid camps and heavy equipment unit. As an assistant fire chief, he was assigned to Division 2 in the east San Gabriel Valley and the Air & Wildland Division.

Chief Pena is currently assigned as the deputy fire chief of the North Regional Operations Bureau, which oversees the cities of Palmdale, Lancaster, Santa Clarita and La Canada Flintridge, as well as the Technical Operations Unit and Air & WIldland Division of the Department. He has also served as operations section chief for the Department on many large wildland incidents and is currently the incident commander of the Department’s Incident Management Team 1.

Chief Pena attended East Los Angeles College, University of La Verne, and the Executive Leadership Development Program for the County of Los Angeles. He also instructs incident command courses for the Fire Department and throughout the country.

Deputy Fire Chief Anthony M. Whittle has served as a full-time member of the Los Angeles County Fire Department for over 27 years. He is a second-generation firefighter who has been around the Department his whole life.

Chief Whittle pursued his interest in the fire service at an early age by becoming a LACoFD Fire Explorer in 1980, an emergency medical technician in 1984, a paramedic in 1985, and a paid call firefighter for the city of Manhattan Beach in 1986. He began his full-time career with LACoFD in 1988 as a proud member of Recruit Class 78.

During his tenure, Chief Whittle has held the positions of firefighter, firefighter paramedic, firefighter specialist, inspector, captain, battalion chief, assistant fire chief, and is currently the deputy fire chief of the Central Regional Operations Bureau, which includes leadership for the Department’s Lifeguard Division. He has served as a chief officer for over 9 years in a variety of field and administrative commands. As a battalion chief, he served in Battalion 7, Battalion 13, and was the director of emergency medical services (EMS). As an assistant fire chief, Chief Whittle commanded the Technical Services Division (EMS, Training, Homeland Security, Technical Operations and Grants), and Division 7, which includes service to the Santa Monica Mountains, a major theme park (Universal Studios), and the Department’s fire boat operations.

Chief Whittle has a diverse background in hazardous materials, refinery firefighting, marine operations, urban search and rescue, EMS, training, and wildland firefighting. Additionally, he is currently the Department’s FIRESCOPE Task Force member.

Chief Whittle is a California State Certified Chief Officer. He has completed the County of Los Angeles Executive Leadership Development Program from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, is currently completing his bachelor of science degree in Fire and Emergency Management, has earned an associate of science degree in Fire Technology, and holds several vocational certifications and qualifications.

Chief Whittle and his wife Teri, a registered dental hygienist, have two children and are longtime residents of the South Bay.

Chief Marrone has been a chief officer for the past 17 years and has served on the Los Angeles County Emergency Preparedness Commission, the FIRESCOPE Task Force and the Legal Exposure Reduction Committee. He was previously assigned to the Leadership and Professional Standards Bureau and his last field assignment was Battalion 6 in the City of Santa Clarita. Chief Marrone has served as a member of the County of Los Angeles Fire Department for over 30 years and brings both emergency operations and administrative experience with him and he looks forward to the many challenges that lie ahead in his new assignment.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Bureau was created in ____ ____, to address the growing EMS needs across the County. In total, EMS 9-1-1 calls comprise nearly 85 percent of the Department’s responses. The Department is committed to providing prompt, clinically skilled, and caring medical service to ensure positive outcomes for everyone, every time.

Chief Deputy David R. Richardson Jr. has served in the fire service for over 30 years. Chief Richardson pursued his interest at an early age by becoming a Fire Explorer. He began his career as a paramedic in 1985 and has promoted through the ranks, having held the positions of firefighter paramedic, firefighter specialist, fire captain, battalion fire chief, assistant fire chief, and deputy fire chief.

Chief Richardson currently serves in the number two position overseeing the Fire Department’s Emergency Operations, which consists of over 4,000 dedicated professionals providing fire protection and emergency medical service delivery to 58 cities, all unincorporated communities, and 72 miles of coastline from the ground, air, and sea.

Chief Richardson’s prior experience includes battalion chief assignments in the Antelope Valley, South Bay, and Santa Clarita Valley, and he has also served as the Interim Warehouse Manager. As assistant fire chief, he was responsible for managing the Fire Department’s largest field division, which serves 12 cities and unincorporated communities in the Southeast area of the County. During his tenure as a deputy fire chief, he provided leadership to the Prevention Services Bureau, as well as the Central Regional Operations Bureau, which includes the Department’s Lifeguard Division. He was acting chief deputy over the Department’s Business Operations for a period of one year, in which he was responsible for overseeing a staff of hard-working professionals and managing a $971 million dollar budget. Most recently, he was deputy chief of the East Regional Operations Bureau prior to his reassignment as acting chief deputy of Emergency Operations, to which he is now permanently appointed.

Chief Richardson has a diverse background in hazardous materials, urban search and rescue, emergency medical services, training, and wildland firefighting. As a member of Federal, State and Department Incident Management Teams, he has achieved national qualification as a Type 2 Operations Section Chief and Incident Commander. He has developed the leadership and experience required to manage large-scale all hazard type incidents. Additionally, he is the current Fire Explorer Program Manager, Los Angeles County Fire Department Incident Management Team Coordinator, OES Region I Area B Coordinator, and FIRESCOPE operations group vice chair.

Chief Richardson earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Fire Protection Administration with a minor in Public Administration from California State University, Los Angeles, and a Master of Science Degree in Emergency Services Administration from California State University, Long Beach. He has also achieved State recognition and qualification as a chief officer.

Chief Richardson is a native of Southern California and resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles County.