Fire chief: Sycamore needs ladder truck

SYCAMORE – More than a dozen buildings in Sycamore are taller than three stories, but the Sycamore Fire Department does not have a ladder truck.

The absence of a ladder-equipped fire engine was one of several key components of Sycamore Fire Chief Bart Gilmore’s presentation of the 2023 Sycamore Fire Department annual report to the Sycamore City Council last month.

A ladder-equipped truck could help the department lower the amount of property damage during large fires, like the St. Albans Green complex fire in July 2019, Gilmore said in an interview with the Daily Chronicle.

“My concern is that you have less punch to deliver to a fire. The sooner you can get a large volume of water on a big fire, the less damage it does,” Gilmore said. “Obviously lower fire loss, less risk to the firefighters.”

The total cost of property damaged by fire in the city of Sycamore and the surrounding area covered by the Sycamore Fire Department in 2023 was $393,950, according to the department’s report. Gilmore said that was unusually low as the district usually averages between $750,000 and $1 million in fire loss in a year.

Of the 70 fire calls Sycamore Fire responded to in 2023, 33 were for building fires. Of those, 14 were within the department’s protection district.

Ian Wheeler, a 37-year-old firefighter and paramedic who’s been with the department since 2006, said he assumed he’d be working with a ladder truck when he entered the workforce as a firefighter, recalling how that truck was always the fun one when he was a kid playing with toy trucks.

“I’ve always had this little background passion to want to be a part of a ladder truck, and now with the growth of Sycamore, the population increase, the expansion of industrial complexes, now my history with the department, and knowledge and experience is now showing me we, in fact, need one and not just want one,” Wheeler said.

Gilmore said an evaluation of the department’s capabilities prompted officials to wonder if the time is right to pursue a ladder truck.

The Insurance Services Office, a subsidiary of Verisk Analytics, scores fire departments across the country on their fire prevention and suppression capabilities on a scale from one to 10, with one being the best. Gilmore said Sycamore received a four.

“One of the glaring areas where we came up short was the lack of having a ladder truck,” Gilmore said. “And the ISO requires that any community that has five buildings of three stories or more, or five buildings that require a fire flow of 3500 gallons per minute, which is just to say you have a large building, you should have a ladder truck. Sycamore has 16 buildings over three stories or more, and then 23 buildings that require at least a fire flow of 3500 gallons per minute.”

Wheeler said ladder trucks – which are fire engines with attached, extendable ladders – are commonly used by fire departments to gain access to roofs and high terraces during structure fires, as well as search-and-rescue operations, among other uses.

Without one of their own, Sycamore firefighters have to rely on other fire districts for help. The DeKalb Fire Department is the first contacted when there’s a need for a ladder truck, but if that vehicle is already on a separate call, another district has to be asked to help.

“Our reliance is always a ‘hopefully,’” Wheeler said. “As much as we would love to say at every fire, ‘We are going to have a ladder truck here in five minutes,’ we can’t. We don’t even count on it until they show up.”

The type of ladder-equipped fire truck Sycamore Fire is considering could cost between $1.6 and $1.8 million, Gilmore said. His department hopes to secure a $1 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the new equipment. The results of the grant application, which are expected in late summer, will dictate the department’s next step, he said.

While the grant application is being considered, Sycamore City Council will continue to look into the possibility of constructing a new Fire Station No. 1 on land Ideal Industries Inc. donated for the initiative.

City officials have discussed their desire to address current Sycamore Fire Station No. 1, 535 DeKalb Ave. – which has gone without central-air conditioning since June 2023 and uses a boiler assumed to be as old as the 67-year-old building for heat in the winter – for more than a year.

In May, the Sycamore City Council approved the next phase of the new fire station project by contracting Oak Brook-based FGM Architects – the firm Sycamore first hired in 2023 to design a new fire station – to finalize the design and costs of the proposal. The month prior, representatives from FGM Architects said their first option for a new facility could cost $10.4 to $11 million.

A rare, out-of-town special City Council meeting will be held at 9 a.m. July 27 in Streamwood, a western suburb of Chicago about 30 miles east of Sycamore. When the meeting was announced, City Manager Michael Hall said the meeting will be held inside Streamwood Fire Station No. 31, 1204 S. Park Ave., which was designed by FGM Architects.

Gilmore said he hopes the meeting will help city officials actualize what a new fire station would be like.

“We want to show them what we’re asking for,” Gilmore said. “We don’t want to just go to them and say, ‘Hey, we need this much money.’ We want to be able to demonstrate this is what this money gets you, so that they can see.”

The current Sycamore Fire Station No. 1 requires shorter than normal fire engines to fit into its engine bay, so a ladder truck could likely only be stored at Sycamore Fire Station No. 2, 2119 Frantum Road, without a new station.

No decisions or policy votes on the new fire station and ladder truck proposals are expected until after the special meeting. In an email to the Daily Chronicle, Hall said that while a ladder truck would be practical for the city, a decision to purchase one would be contingent on multiple factors.

“Best practices identify that the City of Sycamore would benefit from having a ladder truck,” Hall said. “A ladder truck is an excellent firefighting tool. It is used for fire ventilation operations, excellent fire extinguishment abilities, and rescue operations. However, a ladder truck is a big investment. It comes down to the cost vs. the value that the ladder truck brings to the community.”