CLEVELAND —
One of the worst triple four-alarm fires in Cleveland history occurred at the Worsted Mills on July 4, 1993. The massive blaze burned for days, and a young firefighter names Angelo Calvillo was there.
Nearly 30 years later, that picture sits on his desk, the desk of now-Fire Chief Calvillo.
"For me, it's the best job ever," he said in a recent exclusive interview with 3News. "I am so proud and so honored that I was able to lead this division for almost seven years."
But that time is coming to a close, with Calvillo recently announcing his retirement from the division. The move will become official on Thursday.
"I've got to go," he told us. "If I could, I'd probably stay until I'm 65, and I'm sure the critics probably wouldn't like that."
To understand what makes Calvillo burn with passion, you have to go back to the very beginning. He was born on Cleveland's west side on 58th and Lorain, but grew up in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood. His grandparents were from Mexico and Italy, his mother born in Sicily, and his father born in Mexico but coming from Brownsville, Texas.
Calvillo was one of six children. In early pictures, he is seen eating enchiladas and then making tortillas
"We grew up poor," he recalled, "but I knew that, for me, there was no choice but to succeed in life."
His mother embraced the Italian-Mexican culture, but it was his dad who formed his strong Latino roots.
"He taught me to work hard," he explained. "He taught me, too, that, 'Hey, you know what? You have to carry your own weight, and there's not going to be any help, so do what you have to do to preserver and be the best.'"
But it would be another firefighter that would fuel Calvillo's future.
"Mr. Page, he was my mentor," Calvillo said. "Mr. Frank Page was actually a firefighter and he owned Honey Hut Ice Cream, and he believed in me."
"After high school, he actually came over to my parents' house and said, 'I think Angelo would be a great firefighter.'"
Calvillo would join the department in 1989 and eventually make his way up to battalion chief, earning further praise from Page.
"He told my brother John ... 'Listen your brother's going to be the next fire chief,'" Calvillo remembered. "'Mark my words,' and it happened, and he passed away."
Calvillo is only the ninth chief in the city of Cleveland's history but is the first Latino.
"I had to work twice as hard," Calvillo said. "As I moved up the ranks—being Latino, the first Hispanic fire chief—they kind of look at you sideways and say 'Who's this guy think he is?'"
And as chief, he's been putting out fires within his own division, and hasn't always been popular with the rank and file. In 2019, the International Association of Fire Fighters' Local 93 chapter passed a no confidence resolution against Calvillo, claiming he mismanaged the department and jeopardized public safety. Two years later, the union passed a second no confidence vote by an overwhelming 604-16 margin, and the full IAFF followed with a unanimous censure of the chief.
Despite the public displays of contempt, Calvillo remains undeterred.
"I think the silent majority know that I'm very capable of running this division," he stated. "I'm a reformist. I reformed this division to be better because I expect excellence in myself."
Keeping the community and his firefighters safe has always been hot on his list of priorities, which is why he pushes back on the criticism.
"That's what keeps me up at nights: Mak[ing] sure my firefighters are protected," he said. "I'm in that arena fighting the good fight, and if you come into that arena with me and join me to go ahead and provide the best, then I'll accept that feedback, right? But if you're not doing it and you're just pointing [fingers] and you're in the cheap seats, I don't want to hear it."
Since becoming chief, Calvillo has made significant changes
"I run a division now that's No. 1 as far as ISO [International Organization for Standardization] 1," he declared. "We're working on an international accreditation where very few departments in the nation have both those standards, those gold standards."
He also spent $1.8 million dollars on state-of-the-art, self-contained breathing apparatuses with their own personal facepieces.
"Could you imagine if we didn't have that during this the COVID pandemic?" he asked.
Response times have become faster, and structure fire have decreased by more than a minute. In life and death situations, seconds matter.
"I've put them in a good position as far as our staffing, getting our equipment, our training," Calvillo said of the department, also noting that the budget have been balanced "five years in a row from 2016."
Calvillo a man a great faith. He and his wife Maria have raised three kids, and his son Vincent is also a firefighter. I asked him one last question: Does he have any regrets?
"I regret that I didn't have more time," he answered, with tears in his eyes, but I've got to move on."