Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:
For the first time in 30 years, things are less “Rocky” around the Joliet Fire Department. Battalion Chief Brian Plyer retired Oct. 21 after spending the past seven years of his three-decade career supervising training.
Using hay and discarded pallets, Plyer probably has started more fires in abandoned houses than anyone else legally has in Joliet. Then he’s watched from the corner of the room as firefighters have come in one after another to extinguish the burning material or rescue a dummy.
Plyer grew up in Joliet and graduated from Joliet Catholic High School with plans to become a game warden. He took the fire department entrance exam after some prodding from two uncles who were on the department, and then “forgot about it for a year.”
“They called me on a Monday and said, ‘Do you want the job?’ I asked when would I have to start and they told me, ‘Wednesday,’ ” Plyer recalled. “My dad had been injured at work, and I needed a job that would support the family, so I said, ‘OK.’ ”
On May 17, 1989, crews were cleaning up at a four-story apartment building on Western and Hickory streets when the fire rekindled, and four firefighters were trapped on the roof.
“The rope to extend the ground ladder was frayed and snapped off. We had to extend the ladder 35 feet, and then it took everybody to raise it up while it was fully extended,” Plyer said.
The ladder still was about 5 feet short of the roof, but the firefighters on top of the building were able to dangle off the parapet until their feet could touch the top rung. Plyer was one of 17 firefighters named Firefighter of the Year for their efforts in that incident.
After serving in several other positions in the department, Plyer took the training chief job so he could work day shifts to spend more time with his son and daughter.
