Highland Park Fire Chief Pat Tanner retires and Deputy Chief Dan Pease is promoted:
Fire Chief Announces Retirement, Deputy Fire Chief Promoted
Fire Chief Patrick Tanner will be recognized by the city council for 29 years of service to the City of Highland Park at the city council meeting on December 1, 2014. Chief Tanner announced his plan to retire effective December 1 after a rewarding career with the Highland Park Fire Department.
City Manager Ghida Neukirch is pleased to announce the promotion of Deputy Fire Chief Dan Pease to fire chief of the Highland Park Fire Department following Chief Tanner’s retirement.
Pease started with the Highland Park Fire Department in 1987 as a firefighter and emergency services technician. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1997, Battalion Chief in 2008 and Deputy Fire Chief in 2010. Pease is certified in a multitude of areas including Hazardous Materials Incident Command, Weapons of Mass Destruction Response, Advanced Cardiac Life Support, National Incident Management System, PADI Ice, Evidence and Open Water Diver/Rescue, and has been a certified paramedic since 1989. He serves on the Board of Directors for both the Northeastern Illinois Public Safety Training Academy (NIPSTA) and the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) Division 3. Pease holds a Bachelors of Science from Southern Illinois University.
Dan Pease will become the City’s Fire Chief effective on December 2, 2014.
#1 by Chuck on November 29, 2014 - 11:10 PM
Won’t be holding any tag days for the retiring chief apparently – doesn’t he start a new job THE NEXT DAY in the western suburbs?
#2 by Bill Post on November 28, 2014 - 11:38 AM
HWD37, when Truck 33 responds to fires in town where do they get the driver from? Is the driver the 3rd man from Engine 33?
Do they send out Truck 33 automatically to structure fire alarms (with the driver of course) or do they have to upgrade it to a working fire (Code 4) before they send the Truck to the fire?
Thanks
#3 by Bill Post on November 28, 2014 - 11:33 AM
Thanks for the information HWD37.. Do you remember when they had 4 stations and the old Squad 33 only ran with a driver? Engine 33 would follow the Squad to supply the extra manpower.
I know that they are looking into replacing Station 32 however the last that I had heard they weren’t sure if they were going to find a new location for the station or whether they would just build a new station on the site of the current station 32. Have you heard anything about it?
#4 by HWD37 on November 28, 2014 - 8:27 AM
Engine Co. 32: 2 man Crew
Ambulance 32: 2 man Crew. Will be way too crammed for an extra guy at 32 house
Engine Co. 33: 3 man crew
Truck Co. 33: Mutual Aid and in town fires only. Jump crew from Engine 33 takes mutual aid or for in town fires one person will drive to the scene for use if needed.
Battalion 33: 1 man crew
Squad Co. 34: 2 man Crew
Ambulance 34: 2 man crew
34 is also a pretty small station
#5 by Bill Post on November 27, 2014 - 4:48 PM
I would like to wish Chief Tanner luck on his retirement and at the same time wish the new Chief good luck at his new position.
The new Chief needs even more luck in order to get Highland Park to start running with 3 man companies because to my understanding Highland Park only runs with 2 man companies and the town is so cheap that there is no guarantee that the Truck company will be in service on a given day.
Highland Park (which isn’t exactly a poor town) has been running with 2 man companies since at least the 1980’s when they still had 4 fire stations in service. At the time they ran with 4 Engine companies with 2 men normally assigned and they ran a Medium duty Squad company with only one man normally assigned while there Truck company was mostly on reserve or standby status at the time. In around 1998/99 a new Station 33 was built which allowed them to close Station 31 and take Engine 31 out of service and Squad 33 was also taken out of service as it was one man Rescue Squad and not a Pumper/Squad such as Highland Park’s current Squad. Engine 33 was replace with a new Pumper Squad which was recently relocated to Station 34.
As Engine 31 and the old Rescue Squad 33 was taken out of service the Highland Park Fire Department had 3 additional positions per shift that could have been reassigned to each of the remaining three Engine companies (making them 3 man companies) or they could have taken the 3 addition positions and put them their current Sutphen 100 foot Aerial Ladder Truck/Quint and they could have had a full time Truck/Quint company.
Currently Highland Park is planning to replace Station 32 as it was built in 1929 and is out of date and has limited space.
The only thing is that HIghland Park can have nice new stations with impressive looking apparatus (such as their 104 foot Sutphen Aerial Ladder Quint) but if they are only running with 3 (2 man Engine/Squad companies) and if the Truck is not in service on that day) then what good are the nice new Fire Engines and large fire Headquarters ( Station 33) when there aren’t enough men on the companies to properly operate them at a good working structure fire ?
Happy Thanksgiving.