Carus fire caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage to La Salle County area fire department equipment, chiefs report

Area fire departments, including La Salle, Peru, Utica and Oglesby, report tens of thousands of dollars in damage to equipment after responding to the Carus Chemical fire on Jan 11.

Fire Chief Jeff King estimates $29,000 in damage of bunker gear, $1,500 for boots and an additional $1,000 for gloves and hoods. The fire hose he estimates will cost $2,500.

La Salle Fire Chief Jerry Janick said the damage was “significant,” and although he didn’t share specific numbers, he said La Salle sustained the most damage compared to any other department.

Oglesby’s fire department had some gear irreparably damaged in the Carus Chemical fire. The city’s insurers likely will seek reimbursement from Carus, but five firefighters are without gear. The council approved replacement costs up to $30,000.

“We’re not going to have our people out there without the proper safety equipment,” Mayor Dom Rivara said.

Oglesby Fire Chief Ron Popurella said the damage was tabulated at $16,000 and not much of the damaged equipment could be salvaged. Currently, Oglesby firefighters are waiting for replacement gear to arrive and until then firefighters are “piecing together” stray pieces of equipment.

Utica Fire Chief Ben Brown said his department’s losses came to $45,000 and likewise is waiting on deliveries of new equipment.

“Some pieces of gear are in,” Brown said, “but the coats and the pants are six to eight months out.”

Janick said anyone inside the fence line needs their gear replaced, including breathing apparatus, boots, gloves, pants and jackets. After consulting with the manufacturer, Janick was told there’s no guarantee everything is clean and decontaminated because of the porous nature of the material.

“Even though we decontaminated and washed them, they can’t guarantee us what’s going to happen in the future, say in another fire,” Janick said. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are going to replace all that equipment people were wearing.”

King said he sent gear to be evaluated and is waiting to see whether it will need to be replaced. King said his responders’ gloves, boots, coats and jackets, among other items, also were contaminated. Both La Salle and Peru left damaged fire hosing at the scene.

Both departments were in service the next day and the overall impact on the department is expected to be minimal. King and Janick said they have what they need, they just don’t have extra.

“I’m fortunate because each one of my guys has two sets of gear, so the guys that were on call are in their backup gear right now,” King said. “So I’m fortunate in that fact. As far as impact on the department, we always keep spare stuff so we had spare hoses we put on our truck and didn’t have any issues there.”

“We’re functional, but not at 100%,” Janick said. “If I had another fire like that, I’d probably be out of service for a while. But right now, we’re fine as far as day-to-day operations.”

King said he’s planning on filing an insurance claim to cover the cost of the damages and let the agency work out the details with Carus if needed. Janick said he’s planning on seeking reimbursement from Carus for damages.

Janick said there is significant wait time on equipment and inventory is low. King said there’s back order for some hosing and the end of June is the earliest he can get fire gear.

“It was probably as good of an outcome as we could’ve expected,” Janick said. “I don’t think I would’ve changed a whole lot looking back, we used a lot of outside the area resources, the response time was quick, which was awesome. We used some resources for an extended amount of time to cover fire protection in the city of La Salle, and those resources helped out tremendously.”

The cause of the fire still is listed as undetermined and not suspicious, Janick said.