Pasadena Fire Department Appoints First Chaplain in Decades, Promotes 3 New Captains

The Pasadena Fire Department appointed its first chaplain in decades last week, as well as promoted three firefighters to the rank of captain, officials said.

Victor Laveaga, who retired as a firefighter-engineer in 2010 after 33 years of service to the department, has returned to volunteer as fire chaplain, said Interim Chief Brian Frieders.

Laveaga was formally appointed to the position on Oct.20, the same day firefighters Bradley Sims, William Basulto and Eric Lampkin were promoted to the rank of captain, the chief said.

“The chaplain will support our members in the event of a tragedy or when spiritual intervention is requested, as an adjunct to our peer support team,” Frieders said. “He will also provide care and support to families who are dealing with challenges related to our job.”

The last time the city had a fire chaplain was in 1990, although he was not uniformed, Laveaga said. Prior to that, the Pasadena Fire Department had a chaplain in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as in the 1930s.

Laveaga said he headed out to Orange County on Wednesday to support a strike team of Pasadena firefighters currently assigned to the Blue Ridge fire.

In recent weeks, he’s completed about half of his goal to meet every firefighter in the department.

“My first priority was that I need to establish relationships,” he said.

Although he had long been active with the organization Firefighters for Christ, Laveaga said he’d never considered becoming a chaplain until about four years ago.

He had just recovered from a rare and aggressive form of cancer when, out of the blue, an idea suddenly popped into his head that he was going to become the Pasadena Fire Department’s chaplain, he said. He shrugged it off.

But that night brought a “very vivid dream” in which he was dressed in black-and-white, walking past a line of firefighters who were welcoming him back to Pasadena.

He told no one but a handful of close friends and his wife about the dream, he said.

More time passed, and more signs emerged, Laveaga said.

Over time, Laveaga said he took that attitude that if being a chaplain was God’s plan, then he would do it “with all my heart.”

Knowing of his involvement with Firefighters for Christ, Pasadena fire officials asked Laveaga to perform the invocation at an academy graduation nearly two years ago. It led to additional invocations at other events.

A short time later, a friend disclosed that she had also had a dream in which Laveaga was dressed in black-and-white, comforting a firefighter who knelt in front of him.

Laveaga said he began participating in training with Los Angeles Fire Department chaplains and working toward becoming a certified minister at his home church in Anaheim. He expected to complete the process of becoming a minister in the near future.

During a chance encounter with an old friend last year, Laveaga learned that the Pasadena Fire Department was considering creating a chaplain position. He reached out to then-Fire Chief Bertral Washington, and in short order he was asked to be the department’s chaplain.

Throughout his career, Laveaga has always worn a blue uniform. But on Oct. 20, when he was pinned with his new badge, he sported a black-and-white uniform as firefighters, including some he knew as rookies who are now captains, joyfully welcomed him back.

“It took me back to that dream,” he said.