Rock Falls, Sterling fire departments aim to honor fallen firefighter’s dream of local training facility

ROCK FALLS – To build a state-of-the-art training facility that decades down the road still effectively serves Sauk Valley firefighters and, by extension, residents – that’s the goal that members of the Garrett Ramos Training Facility Cooperative set for the Rock Falls and Sterling fire departments.

On July 10, the departments moved a step closer to making that dream happen when the U.S. House Appropriations Committee voted 29-26 to approve the fiscal 2025 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

Among the bill’s Community Project Funding appropriations was $825,000 for the Rock Falls Fire Department to build a burn tower, where firefighters from around the area can train in real-life fire conditions.

“We’re trying to build this for longevity,” Rock Falls Deputy Fire Chief Kyle Sommers said. “We want it to be a long-lasting project and there long after we’re there.”

Sommers co-chairs the cooperative’s committee alongside Sterling Fire Department Capt. Clark Liedberg.

A needs assessment for the two fire departments found that they “lacked some facilities to conduct realistic scenario-based training and solutions” at the local level, Sommers said during a Rock Falls City Council meeting in October.

“That resulted in a gap between our current training system and our desired outcome,” he said.

The assessment was done in the wake of the line-of-duty death of Sterling fire Lt. Garrett Ramos.

The 38-year-old died Dec. 4, 2021, after falling through the floor of a burning home in rural Rock Falls. About 30 minutes after two of Ramos’ mayday calls went unanswered, he was discovered unresponsive in a basement that fire command hadn’t known existed.

Ramos was the first Sterling firefighter to die in the line of duty. He posthumously was promoted to captain.

The construction of a training facility had been a goal of Ramos’ for quite some time, but things never quite worked out, Liedberg said.

Neither the Sterling nor Rock Falls fire departments have an easily accessible facility in which to conduct realistic scenarios, Sommers said at the October 2023 meeting. Such training is an immediate need identified by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and National Fire Protection Association guidelines, he said.

In April 2022, OSHA released its initial incident report, dated March 8, 2022, outlining multiple “willful” errors made during the fire. The final report was released in December 2022, and as a result, the cities of Sterling and Rock Falls paid a combined $36,000 in fines for “lapses” in each department’s policies and procedures.

Those lapses contributed to Ramos’ death from “asphyxia caused by inhalation of products of combustion due to a structure fire,” according to the report.

Although the direct cause of Ramos’ death was “exposure to respiratory hazards,” the indirect causes included a failure “to identify the presence or absence of a basement,” and a failure to ensure that firefighters entering the home “were operating on the designated [radio] frequency,” among other things, OSHA said.

“Unfortunately, sometimes these tragic events have a way of pushing you in the direction you need to go,” Liedberg said. “It really hurts that it was Garrett Ramos’ passing that pushed us in this direction. We are doing our best to finish his dream of getting this thing done.”

What’s next

The appropriations bill still must go through votes in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, and then be signed into law before funds are distributed.

U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Rockford, requested that the fire department receive $1.5 million of CPF funds toward the burn tower.

Even though the House Appropriations Committee approved a lower amount than Sorensen’s request, that kind of money likely would allow a burn tower to be built within the next two years, Sommers said.

“If for some reason the CPF does get denied, we’ll still be moving forward on the project,” Sommers said. “It’ll just take a little bit longer. If we don’t get the money, we don’t really have a specific timeline. If we are awarded the funds, that’s going to speed up the process significantly.”

The CPF money would go a long way, Liedberg said. If the fire departments have a better training facility, they’re better at their jobs, which makes their communities safer places to live, he said.

“This is not just for Sterling and Rock Falls, but all surrounding departments are invited to learn and train so they can make their own communities better as well,” Liedberg said.

The training facility will be located on 5 acres on Beltway Drive in Rock Falls’ industrial park, Sommers said. The city of Rock Falls owns the vacant land and has allocated it for the facility, he said.

It will be built in phases, with the burn tower being the first priority, Sommers said.

“The burn tower is the early phase because we can do the most with that, and we want to be able to utilize this as quickly as we can,” he said.

They’re looking to build a Class A burn facility, which would allow them to “conduct lifelike training evolutions under live fire conditions,” Sommer said.

Later phases of the project include classrooms, space to store fire apparatuses and other training buildings, Liedberg said.

“Having this facility here, even to generations down the line, just brings [Ramos’] spirit back into the community and a department where he is, and always will be, the inspiration behind this facility and our constant strive to be better firefighters,” Liedberg said.