The State - News from Jan. 7, 1988

The highest-ranking black in the Los Angeles Fire Department, who felt the sting of racial discrimination in his early days as a city firefighter, has won an interim appointment as one of Fire Chief Donald O. Manning’s four top deputies. The appointment of Assistant Chief Paul A. Orduna, 60, of Northridge as deputy chief in charge of the Bureau of Support Services becomes effective Jan. 17. Manning named Orduna as a deputy chief because there is no current list of candidates for the position. To keep his new job, Orduna must win it in Civil Service competition with other assistant chiefs. There are 17 assistant chiefs in the department. Orduna’s journey from firefighter to assistant chief began in a period of turbulent race relations in the Fire Department in the mid-1950s. After protests from the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and widespread public controversy over unequal treatment of blacks, the City Fire Commission ordered desegregation of the city’s fire stations in 1955. After failing on his first try, he cleared the test hurdles in early 1957 and was appointed the following September as the only black candidate in a class of 60.