Chief Fernando Boiteux

Chief Lifeguard
Los Angeles County Fire Department

Fernando has been with Los Angeles County Fire Department for the last thirty years. He has been a chief officer since 2006 and promoted in 2020 to Chief Lifeguard. Currently he is the Lifeguard Division responsibilities include beach and maritime safety of the public in the 72 miles of coastline of the County of Los Angeles, with staff of approximately 800 personnel.
He is a trained Type 3 Incident Commander in All Hazards Incident Management Team.

Fernando has been involved in testing and evaluating in partnership with the US NAVY in new technology for search and rescue such as autonomous surface vehicles since 2010. Under his leadership new rescue tools have been introduced and currently part of technical rescue team equipment.

One of the highlight as a professional rescuer, in January 2016 in Greece, in coordination with Helenic Coast Guard assisted in over 400 refugees in the Aegean Seas.

Fernando holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from California State University, at Northridge and graduate of the Los Angeles County Fire Leadership and Management Program.

He is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish languages.