For the second time in less than a week, the Oakland Fire Department is mourning one of its own.

On Tuesday evening, recently retired Battalion Chief Angelo Primas, 54, didn't awake from a nap at his Oakland home. On Saturday, Lt. Kevin Reed, 47, collapsed and died while working out at a downtown Oakland gym.

The two deaths have saddened the close-knit, 500-member department, which also buried Walt Nielsen, a retired assistant chief, the same day Reed died, Capt. Melinda Drayton said Wednesday.

"It's been absolutely devastating," said Drayton, a department spokeswoman. "It's just back to back to back."

It has been especially difficult for firefighters at Station 8 on 51st Street near Telegraph Avenue in North Oakland, where Reed, a 16-year veteran, had worked and where Primas had spent much of his 23-year career.

At about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oakland firefighters were called to Primas' home on Elysian Fields Drive in Oakland by his wife, Pamela, who couldn't wake him from a nap, Drayton said.

Firefighters and paramedics could not resuscitate Primas, who retired from the department in March 2006.

Primas most recently worked at the fire station at 16th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way but rose through the ranks at Station 8. He had served as a fire academy director and has also served as an executive board member for the Oakland Black Firefighters Association.

Primas has four relatives in the Fire Department: his brother, Leon Primas; his nephew,Keith Evans; and cousins Maurice Miranda and Donnie Harris.

"He was the definition of a hero, and the reason why is because whenever there was a problem, he was always the first person to help out," Primas' son, Angelo Primas Jr., 24, said Wednesday. "He was the epitome of a hard worker, the pinnacle of a good human being."

"He dedicated himself to Oakland, and his family was very important to him," Oakland Fire Chief Daniel Farrell said of Primas in a statement.

Primas is also survived by his daughter, Adriane, 27. Funeral arrangements are pending.