Posts Tagged East Dundee Fire Protection District

The Carpentersville, East Dundee, Rutland, and West Dundee fire departments have agreed to share expenses for equipment that will be used for incidents involving hazardous materials, water, and technical rescues, and special investigations in all four areas.

Rutland’s decommissioned squad will carry needed equipment and be housed at one of the Carpentersville fire stations.

“Carpentersville is firmly committed to the implementation of interdepartmental cooperation with the possible goal that at a future date we will merge the departments to provide economies of scale through better use of equipment, better use of staff, shared leadership and creative new ideas,” said Carpentersville Village President Ed Ritter.

According to West Dundee Fire Chief Randy Freise, Carpentersville Fire Chief John-Paul Schilling has offered to send personnel as needed for the special-incident teams and will coordinate with all other fire departments.

A committee of representatives from the four departments has met. Their plans include that initial crews from each department will respond to incidents, with the special-teams vehicle used as an additional resource for large incidents when needed,” said Freise.

This is an excellent way to combine resources for the betterment of the community. According to the agreement, the four fire departments involved will be sharing expenses associated with equipping, maintaining, insuring and storing the squad. It will remain titled in the name of Rutland-Dundee.

With smaller communities in the Rutland Dundee Township Fire Protection District like Sleepy Hollow struggling to make ends meet, this agreement could be the start of continuing partnerships with larger municipalities to provide shared services.

thanks Dan

Tags: Carpentersville Fire Department, East Dundee Fire Protection District, Fire Chief John Schilling, fire departments to share resources, Rutland Dundee Fire Department, Rutland Dundee Township Fire Protection District, Rutland-Dundee Fire Protection District, West Dundee Fire Department, West Dundee Fire Department Fire Chief Randy Freise

Fire departments consider sharing a fire chief

Jun 7

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | Comments off

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

Calling it a tremendous step toward the pursuit of functional consolidation, East and West Dundee fire departments will consider sharing a chief once the head of East Dundee’s department retires later this year. East Dundee Fire Chief Steve Schmitendorf is set to retire in December.

At Monday’s village board meeting, West Dundee officials approved executing an intergovernmental agreement with the East Dundee and Countryside Fire Protection District for joint management services. The measure now has to be approved by members of the East Dundee Fire Protection District board.

The East Dundee Fire District board met twice, once in April and again in May to discuss options for replacing Schmitendorf upon his retirement, West Dundee Fire Chief Randy Freise said in a memo to the West Dundee Village Board. Members were very interested in signing an intergovernmental agreement with West Dundee to have Freise take the helm of both departments.

At Monday’s West Dundee Village Board meeting, Freise went more in-depth as to what that consolidation would look like. He said a main advantage would be the cost savings realized by sharing a chief. East Dundee has proposed a salary of $125,000, including benefits, which would be shared 50/50, he said.

Freise would oversee both departments, with East Dundee’s fire deputy chief being directly responsible for East Dundee personnel. The deputy chief would report directly to Freise. Freise, in turn would continue to report directly to West Dundee Village Manager Joseph Cavallaro as well as the East Dundee Fire District Board.

Freise said the main goal will be to bring both departments together to function as one department, and other cost savings would come from sharing vehicles, training, and programs.

He added the agreement is very low risk due to an opt out clause that can be incorporated stating either party can terminate the agreement with a written 90-day notice.

Last December, citing nearly impossible hurdles at the state level, the Carpentersville Fire Department, East Dundee Fire Protection District and West Dundee Fire Department opted not to seek a legal consolidation.

Tags: East Dundee and Countryside Fire Protection District, East Dundee Fire Chief Steve Schmitendorf, East Dundee Fire Protection District, Fire departments consider sharing a fire chief, fire departments might share fire chief, West Dundee Fire Chief Randy Freise, West Dundee Fire Department

Fire department consolidation proves complex

Dec 9

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 1 Comment

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

Citing nearly impossible legal hurdles at the state level, the Carpentersville Fire Department, East Dundee Fire Protection District and West Dundee Fire Department will not seek a complete consolidation at this time.

However, the fire chiefs do agree it should be a goal for the future. “It doesn’t mean we’re stopping and just not doing anything,” West Dundee Chief Randy Freise said. “We’re just not jumping in all at once. We’re breaking it down into smaller pieces.”

In November of 2014, members of the Carpentersville Village Board, East Dundee and Countryside Fire Protection District Board, and West Dundee Village Board shared the $30,908 expense to initiate the study by Emergency Services Consulting International. In October of this year, results from that in-depth study concluded consolidating fire services would make sense.

However, Freise said during a presentation at Monday’s board meeting, when the fire chiefs were tasked with analyzing the study and discussing the results with their respective boards “we came to the conclusion a complete legal consolidation at this time would be too difficult to do.”

Freise said a state law passed in the last year and a half requires more hurdles in order to make consolidations possible. “Now we have referendums and court appearances and all these different things we have to do in order to do this,” he said. “It kind of takes the decision away from the local boards and makes it much more difficult.”

They plan to keep working toward the ultimate goal of a potential full consolidation. That includes the possibility of forming work groups represented by members of each department and municipality and tasked with developing a regional approach to providing the best outcome, and a regional board that would include a fire chief from each of the respective towns and a trustee from that town to consider the recommendations of the work groups.

The fire chiefs are also meeting with Sen. Karen McConnaughay this month to discuss the roadblocks in state law considering consolidation, Freise said. “One of our goals is to meet with local legislators to make them aware the state is making it more difficult and to see if we can’t change the legislation and make it more streamlined,” he said.

Freise said in the last few weeks he has also heard from the Rutland-Dundee Township Fire Protection District chief who is interested in joining the conversation of a possible future consolidation. “A big piece of our regional puzzle that has been missing from the onset is participation of Rutland-Dundee Township Fire Protection District,” he said. “Through all of this we’ve continued to work closely with them and will most likely continue to do so in the future, no matter what it holds.”

More can be found HERE, and HERE

Tags: Carpentersville Fire Department, cities research consolidation of fire and EMS, East Dundee Fire Protection District, Fire department consolidation proves complex, fire departments consider consolidation, Rutland-Dundee Fire Protection District, towns consider consolidation of fire departments, West Dundee Fire Chief Randy Friese, West Dundee Fire Department

West Dundee will study options for consolidation of fire services with neighbors (more)

Oct 21

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News, Fire Service News | 1 Comment

Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:

The West Dundee and Carpentersville fire departments and the East Dundee Fire Protection District engaged in a cooperative services feasibility study with the goal to improve services while saving taxpayers’ money, West Dundee Fire Chief Randy Freise said.

The results of the study, which began in January, were presented to fire officials and their governing bodies Monday.

Kent Greene, of Oregon-based Emergency Services Consulting International, said the three entities already have worked well together in certain operational areas, such as sharing an automatic aid agreement. However, further and more formal methods of consolidating could save costs and expand services, he said.

The departments have three options: merge into a single fire department, maintain separate entities while combining some efforts, or decide to make no changes.

The study determined the departments are efficiently serving their intended areas with “very good response performances,” Greene said.

Merging the three departments, however, could streamline the use and efficiency of resources. The number of administrative and support positions, for example, wouldn’t change significantly. But instead of having three fire chiefs, they could allot resources to a training officer and an inspector — positions that currently don’t exist.

There are also ways to join efforts without becoming one entity, such as developing a pre-incident planning process used by all three departments so they have the same emergency strategies. They could also combine training and fire prevention education programs.

“I’m 100 percent behind some form of (consolidating), and they gave us a lot of things to think about,” East Dundee Fire Chief Steve Schmitendorf said.

Freise said fire officials had been discussing consolidation possibilities for years before deciding last year to conduct the study for $30,908, a cost that was split among the three entities.

Excerpts from theChicagoTribune.com:

An in-depth study has concluded consolidating fire services makes sense.

Now, members of the Carpentersville Fire Department, East Dundee Fire Protection District and West Dundee Fire Department have to find out if elected officials and the community agree.

On Monday, Kent Greene, senior vice president with Emergency Services Consulting International, unveiled the results during two different presentations with the fire chiefs and emergency services employees.

“The study was not intended to be a merger study,” Greene said. “It was never our intention to come in and say, ‘Let’s take these departments and make them one.’ I don’t want anyone to think we came in to merge your organizations. It was more to give you the information you need to make changes in the future to help you work better.”

Already, the fire departments are served by QuadCom Regional Dispatch Center, the multi-agency dispatch center in Carpentersville that also covers East Dundee and Rutland Dundee Fire departments.

He said there are several options for even more cooperative efforts, including a functional consolidation, an operational consolidation, or a legal unification. Officials could also choose autonomy, where the fire districts stay as they are.

Greene noted a consolidation would not mean reducing personnel. He said the amount of firefighters for the combined 24.82 square miles the three departments serve is lower than the national and regional average.

However, he said rather than having three chiefs, positions can be reallocated. “You could fill positions that should be filled so services can still be delivered at the current or higher level without a significant cost increase.”

Other cooperative efforts include working together to adopt a shared capital replacement plan that adequately funds the purchase, replacement or rehabilitation of future apparatus, combine their administrative and support services, jointly purchase equipment and apparatus, and consolidate training programs.

Now, elected officials have to decide whether to authorize a continuing investigation into the cooperative efforts that may or may not result in the consolidation of the local fire departments.

thanks Dan

Tags: Carpentersville Fire Department, East Dundee Fire Chief Steve Schmitendorf, East Dundee Fire Protection District, fire departments discuss consolidation, towns consider consolidation of fire departments, towns consider consolidation of fire stations, West Dundee Chief Randy Freise, West Dundee Fire Department

As seen around … East Dundee

Aug 23

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News, Fire Truck photos | Comments off

This from Tyler Tobolt:

I stopped by the East Dundee FD to get some photos of the new Engine 41. Here are two photos of the new Spartan Metro Star pumper 1500/500 from Alexis.

here is a link to more photos of Engine 41

Thank you Tyler Tobolt.

Tyler Tobolt photo

Here is a video of the units responding to a call

Tags: East Dundee Fire Protection District, fire truck photos, new engine for East Dundee FPD, Tyler Tobolt

New engine for East Dundee

Jul 22

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 1 Comment

Production photos of a new engine being built by Alexis for East Dundee

Alexis Fire Equipment photo

thanks Ron

Tags: Alexis Fire Equipment, East Dundee Fire Protection District, new engine for East Dundee FPD, photos of fire truck being built

East Dundee FPD celebrates 125 years

Jul 20

Posted by Admin in Fire Department History, Fire Department News | Comments off

Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:

The East Dundee FPD is celebrating its 125th anniversary. [According to] Jason Parthun, the fire district’s assistant fire chief, many have heard stories that people back then put out their fires with the help of their neighbors.

“There were no sirens, pagers or 9-1-1. People saw something burning and shouted for help,” Parthun said. “A bucket brigade of volunteers handed pails of water to each other to throw on the fire.”

After enough of those fires, East Dundee residents, whose village was only 19 years old, decided they needed organization and formed an all-volunteer fire department. They brought a horse or two and a fire wagon, and they were in business. Unfortunately, no records of early calls or later purchases remain; only 1920-era photographs of volunteers standing next to a fire truck stand as proof that the department existed before fire district was formed in 1959.

There was an advantage to turning the department into a fire district. A district gave East Dundee fire trustees the authority to charge property taxes to pay for equipment and services. Even though the village and the district were still in their infancies, fire trustees still had to pay for gasoline to power the trucks. They also had to build a fire station to house the trucks.

“The first firehouse was on Third Street,” said Mark Guth, one of the oldest East Dundee residents still active with the fire district. “It had two (truck) bays and room on the second floor to store the hay for the horses.”

In 1959, the house was torn down and replaced with a brick building that still stands, but no longer serves as a firehouse. The village’s police department has taken the structure over because it needed more room. Within the last year, the fire department opened a station along Route 25.

Guth is president of the district’s board of trustees. He has also worked as a firefighter and was the district’s first paramedic in 1975.

“I started with the fire district in 1959, and firefighters were paid $2 for each call,” he said. “At the end of the year, the firefighters received IOUs from the district because it didn’t have the money to pay us.”

In his first year of services, firefighters responded to 25 calls. Their services covered hundreds of residents. Today, the fire district covers 10,000 residents from the Fox River to South Barrington [and] has 30 full-and part-time firefighters and paramedics who responded to 1,350 calls last year.

Through its history, many East Dundee firefighters were related to each other and helped the department grow. Max Freeman was the district’s first fire chief. His brother, Earl, the only East Dundee firefighter to die in the line of duty, was a firefighter who died of a heart attack in 1958 after responding to a call.

Eugene Rakow served as fire chief until retiring in the 1980s. His son, Mark, took his place as chief.

Even Guth comes from a line of firefighters. His father, Marcus, served on the East Dundee Fire Department. His son, Mark Guth III, works for the West Dundee Fire Department.

A five-alarm blaze, the largest fire the department [battled was in] March 2007. Lightning struck and destroyed the abandoned Dundee Lumber Co. on Barrington Avenue.