HUNTLEY, IL – It was not a matter of an urgent facelift that caused the relocation of Huntley Fire Protection District Station #1. It was a matter of convenience and necessity: the current building at 11808 Coral St., in the middle of the village, had become a victim of Huntley’s success.
“Everything we do in the fire service is all based on time, how fast we can get to you,” Deputy Chief Albert Schlick III said.
“As [Huntley] developed down south, we had to put stations up there; as it developed up north, we had to put stations up there.”
Delivery trucks to various restaurants and stores around the village square would block access to and from the station, and during music festivals and other community gatherings, Coral Street itself would often be cordoned off. With the area’s increasing popularity came increasing congestion.
This map shows the current district coverage areas. Location #5 (circled in red) will shift District #3’s service area, which is the Fire Protection District’s busiest area.
“There are times where our engine…cannot get out of the station and travel east,” Schlick said. “Now you’d say, that’s okay, just go [west] around the block, but there is no block. If I want to go west, I have to go to [Route 47] all the way to Woodstock [and] go down Woodstock Street, which puts me by the library again, in order for me to go east.”
He also described having to wait at the railway tracks next to the station during emergency calls very problematic.
The Coral Street location had been renovated multiple times before, and its new home at 11118 Main St. is the current training annex for the district. Fire Chief Scott Ravagnie said most of the furniture from its present spot will simply be transferred to the new one, less than a mile away.
Aside from aesthetics, the upgrades are also aimed at making the stations a healthier environment for firefighters. One example Schlick gave was a focus on tile flooring instead of carpeting to lower cancer occurrences from smoke residue.
“Carpet’s kind of an old way of doing things,” Schlick said. “Any carcinogens would get trapped in it, whereas tile floors [are]…easier to keep stuff out of it.”
The district operates four stations, including the combination station/headquarters on Coral Street, in addition to the annex building. The stations are located throughout the village, with one station in neighboring Algonquin.
The communities the district serves also include Lake in the Hills, Dundee, Gilberts and Hampshire. A fifth station is under construction at the intersection of Jim Dhamer Drive and Hennig Road.
“That Station #5 will actually cover the part of Hampshire we do cover, on the south side of I-90,” Ravagnie said.
The new station’s location would allow it to alleviate the pressures of the others.
“We have been pretending for the last year and a half that that station was there, watching how many calls it has been taking,” Schlick said.
He estimated that Station #5 would take some 700 calls, annually, away from their busiest current location, Station #3.
Construction continues on the new location #5.
The renovated Station #1 and headquarters would staff four firefighters to start, while Station #5 would have three. The Coral St. locale is planned to be sold when renovations are completed to the Main St. annex.
Schlick said the projects would be paid for without the use of taxpayer money, with some $3 million allocated for the construction of Station #5 and $10 million going towards the Annex’s renovation into the new Station #1, both of which are scheduled for completion around January 2020. A new fire engine and an ambulance will be purchased to service the new station.
The ambulance would prove beneficial to the district, as Schlick said ambulances usually last only seven years, whereas fire engines and ‘quints,’ or engines with ladders, can be used for 15 or more.
He added that fire is “not the problem it used to be in this country” due to increased education, about proper fire safety etiquette. Emergency medical services (EMS) are an increasingly large part of their jobs, he said.
“Last year, we ran 4,916 calls,” he said. “Of that, 67 percent was EMS…all of our career folks are cross-trained, and of our part-time folks, a lot of them are cross-trained as well.”
All the more reason, both men stressed, for the move to new locations and to get to emergencies on time.
