Eleni Pappas

Born to immigrant parents who moved to the United States from Greece, Deputy Fire Chief Eleni Pappas was raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. After graduating from Saint Dominic’s Academy High School, she was accepted into the University of Southern California where she competed as a varsity rower, helping her team win the prestigious San Diego Crew Cup. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree during the civil unrest in May 1992.

From her college apartment, she watched Los Angeles burn and was impressed with the fire engines and tiller trucks racing across the city to extinguish the fires. She decided then and there to become a firefighter.

By 1996, Chief Pappas earned her paramedic license from Daniel Freeman Paramedic School in Inglewood. She then worked as an EMT for Goodhew Ambulance where she ran 9-1-1 calls with the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD).

A few years later, she was hired by Ventura County Fire Department and served as a firefighter for one year. She then became a firefighter with the City of Los Angeles and served there for four years. In 2001, after the attack on the World Trade Center, she was accepted into the Department’s Recruit Academy and graduated from the 109th Recruit Class later that year.

Since joining the LACoFD, she has been promoted through every rank and is currently the highest-ranking woman in the Department’s history and the first-ever woman to obtain the ranks of Assistant Fire Chief and now Deputy Fire Chief.

She has worked in all three regional operations bureaus and in all 22 operations battalions. Since her promotion as a chief officer in September 2012, Chief Pappas has spent three years as the co-chairperson of the Equipment Development Committee and also managed the Department-wide implementation of the electronic patient care reporting (ePCR) system. As an Assistant Fire Chief, she was assigned to Division VI in the Central Regional Operations Bureau and managed the Fire Explorers youth mentoring program. Currently, she is assigned to the Special Services Bureau where she manages the Command and Control, Construction and Maintenance, and Fleet Services Divisions.

In August 2021, Chief Pappas successfully completed her master’s degree in Emergency Management from Cal State Long Beach.

At home, Chief Pappas enjoys gardening and spending time with her family, their dogs, parakeets, and bearded dragon. Raising her daughter is her greatest accomplishment.