Along the Illinois/Wisconsin border in McHenry County is the town of Richmond and the Richmond Fire Protection District. They are in Division 5 covering roughly 28 square miles from one fire station which is packed with apparatus. The design of the Richmond fire station is sightly unique in that all of the apparatus bays are in the rear of the ‘L-shaped’ building.
The Richmond FPD station was designed in an 'L-shape' with the apparatus bays around the back of the building. Larry Shapiro photo
The department has a full-time chief and is staffed by 40 part-time firefighters. They run two engines, a truck, a tanker, two ambulances, a brush unit, two AWD ATVs and a pickup which doubles as a chase vehicle for medical runs and a take-home vehicle for the night-time shift commanders. Additionally, they have two beautiful antique engines.
Several years ago, Richmond purchased a 1984 E-ONE, 110′, rear mount, single axle straight truck from Franklin Park. This was an early custom cab/chassis unit from E-ONE with the square cab. Richmond updated the emergency lighting, repainted the black roof white and did various other work to the unit before putting it in service.
One of Richmond’s engines built in 1999 by US Tank with an enclosed top-mount pump panel has a twin unit in neighboring Spring Grove. Both feature the HME 1871 super command cab.
