Crime & Safety

Donated House Gives Palatine Fire Department Opportunity to Hone Skills

Palatine residents Anita and Bob Kuechenberg plan to demolish their existing home and rebuild, but for the next week firefighters will conduct valuable real-life training there.

A Palatine house is doubling as a training ground for the Palatine, Rolling Meadows and Palatine Rural (Inverness) fire departments over the next week, in an effort to sharpen fire and rescue response skills for real-life emergency calls.

Anita and Bob Keuchenberg, who own the property and the house at 1103 Peregrine Court, ultimately plan to tear down the structure and rebuild.

But for the next week, firefighters will be conducting training exercises complete with real-world scenarios that test their professional knowledge and skills.   

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“This is a great training opportunity for our firefighters, which allows us to evaluate and critique each call to determine the areas we need to continue training on,” said William Gabrenya, Palatine deputy fire chief. 

The scenarios are presented to firefighters as they would be on a true emergency call. Smoke machines fill the house with stage smoke, and lights are positioned inside to represent the fire itself. The training exercises began last week and will continue through the end of this week. 

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Each day, three different groups of 15 firefighters from all three departments will train for two-hour sessions; all of them will include three unique emergency scenarios to train for.

Gabrenya said an average house fire requires 24 personnel on the scene to fight it. Palatine has a total of 25 firefighters per shift, so bringing outside departments in for back-up is not only helpful, but necessary so resources aren’t depleted in case of other emergency calls.

Palatine is conducting the training with Rolling Meadows and Palatine Rural, because they so often work together on emergency calls, Gabrenya said.

The chances for the fire department to train in an abandoned house is an opportunity that comes along one or twice per year at the maximum, said Rob Kluzek, lieutenant for Palatine fire department.

Firefighters participating in the training also appreciate the opportunity to hone their skills for a real emergency situation when it occurs.

“This type of training is essential; if we aren’t getting hands-on experience there is the chance we can lose those skills-this makes us far more efficient and helps us work better with neighboring departments,” said Rick Acosta, a 19-year firefighter from Rolling Meadows.

“As far as skills and teamwork, this is as close as we get to make sure the real calls are handled as smoothly as possible,” said Vito Virgilio, a four-year firefighter with Palatine.  

The last time the Palatine fire department was able to train in an abandon house was September 2011. That house also was scheduled for demolition.  

“We very much appreciate the opportunity given to us by the Kuechenberg’s,” Kluzek said. “As far as training goes, this is as close as it gets to the real world.”


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