Recently Lost: Rebecca Marodi
On February 17, 2025, 49-year-old Cal Fire Captain Rebecca “Becky” Marodi was fatally stabbed at her home near Ramona, California, in an intimate partner violence homicide. Rebecca’s death has shaken not only her family and friends, but also fire service communities across California and beyond, who knew her as a skilled leader and a beloved colleague.
Rebecca devoted more than 30 years of her life to firefighting and public safety, beginning her career as a volunteer firefighter in Moreno Valley in the early 1990s. Over the following decades she served with CAL FIRE and county fire departments across Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego Counties, progressing from seasonal firefighter to fire apparatus engineer and ultimately to the rank of captain. Colleagues have remembered her not only for her technical expertise and leadership on major incidents such as the Eaton Fire, but also for her deep commitment to peer support and to the emotional well-being of the people she worked alongside.
As a lesbian fire captain in a historically heteronormative profession dominated by cisgender men, Rebecca represented hard-won visibility for masculine women in emergency services. Her death has prompted renewed conversations about how institutions support LGBTQ+ personnel, respond to signs of intimate partner violence, and ensure that those who dedicate their lives to protecting others are themselves protected at home and at work. In memorial statements, CAL FIRE and local fire agencies have emphasized how widely she was respected and how profoundly her loss is felt in the stations and communities she served.
Please share Rebecca’s story in your networks. This site also invites submissions of names and stories of other transmasculine homicide victims you know, so that the full landscape of gendered and anti-LGBTQ+ violence can be documented, mourned, and challenged in community.
