OPERATIONS REPORT 2009

 Battalion Chief Brian Lucca, the Operations Chief oversees the running of the 10 fire stations in the City of Joliet.

STRUCTURE FIRES FOR 2009:

The Department responded to 59 structure fires which mean that multiple hose lines were pulled, and 5” hose was connected to a fire hydrant for a water supply.

We respond to hundreds and hundreds of other fire calls through-out the year as well. Car, brush, and trash fires are other fires that are handled by a single engine. Carbon monoxide, power lines down, auto accidents, wash downs, rescue calls, police assists and others make up the remaining calls for our equipment. 

• Battalion 1 handled 42 of the fires
• Battalion 2 handled 17 of the fires

The city is broken into East, Central, and West districts. East is from the DesPlaines River to the far eastern border. Central is from the DesPlaines River up to and excluding Larkin Ave. And west is from, and including Larkin Ave to the far western borders. Fires by district were:

As you can see, no one area of the city is any more prone to fire than another.

The time of the year appeared to have no effect as to the amount of fires either. The 1st quarter of the year saw 15 structure fires; the 2nd quarter had 21, the 3rd had 11 and the 4th quarter had 12.

MAJOR FIRES 2009

The Joliet Fire Department had two major fires in 2009:

March 20, 2009 - 2300 Empress Dr. - Empress River Casino.

At 0959 hours the Empress paramedic reported to dispatch a fire in the kitchen and to make a still alarm for the facility. First arriving units on the scene at 1005 hours reported “heavy fire from the roof.” At 1009 hours a box alarm was requested that would bring additional equipment to the scene. At 1009 hours a 2-11 and 3-11 alarm was called for thereby calling out the entire department for call back and more equipment to the scene. At 1153 hours due to a lack of water to the property, water tenders were called out using MABAS (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) which Joliet is a member of. Thirty – five suburban Fire Departments responded to this call for assistance. The fire was deemed under control at approximately midnight. Crews remained on the scene throughout the night and picked up all equipment by 1200 hours on March 21st – some 26 hours after the initial alarm. 

August 31, 2009 - 175 S. DesPlaines - Tire Grinders.

At 1933 hours (7:33 pm) there was an East District Alarm for smoke in the area. Crews arrived at 1936 hours to find heavy smoke and flames from a warehouse.

The warehouse contained thousands of pounds of pulverized rubber tires that are used in various applications once broken down into pellets. At 1938 hours a box alarm was requested that would bring additional equipment to the scene. At 1941 hours a 2-11 alarm was requested that brought additional equipment as well as calling back off duty members of the department. At 2300 hours the on-duty crews were released back to their stations and the call-out members remained on scene. The off duty members remained through-out the night and worked with demolition crews that had been called to the scene. East side crews responded back to the scene for the next three days containing flare ups of the pulverized rubber pellets.