Ex-Fire Chief Ron Adams Dies at 59 of Heart Attack

Ron Emery Adams, a firefighter for nearly 30 years and a former fire chief in Seal Beach and Laguna Beach, has died at age 59.

Adams died after a heart attack Saturday at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, fire officials and family members said.

The Stockton native began his career as a firefighter after working in his father’s ironworks shop in Redondo Beach, his wife said.

In 1954, he became a volunteer firefighter in Palos Verdes Estates, and two years later he joined that department full time.

In 1964 he joined the Westminster Fire Department, and in 1966 he became Seal Beach fire chief at 33, the youngest fire chief in the state at the time, said his wife, Dorothy Adams of Laguna Beach.

In Seal Beach, Adams oversaw the department’s growth from four full-time firefighters to a staff of 40, she said.

In 1981, he was appointed fire chief in Laguna Beach and served until 1986.

“It was nothing to see him out all night and come back very tired,” Dorothy Adams, 54, recalled of the years that her husband was a firefighter.

Adams occasionally taught fire sciences at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana and Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, his wife said.

Adams also served as president of the California Fire Chief’s Assn. from 1983 to 1984 and before that was president of the Orange County Fire Chief’s Assn.

Services are scheduled for Thursday at 1 p.m. at Pacific View Memorial Park, 3500 Pacific View Drive in Newport Beach.

Adams is also survived by his mother and father, Suzanne and Emery Adams of Laguna Hills; and two children, Jan, 29, of Costa Mesa and Randy, 26, of San Clemente.