Illinois American Water is donating more than 75 thousand dollars to departments across the state, and Tolono is one of them. It's for one thousand dollars and the fire protection district says they need that money to replace the old equipment.

It costs around 30 to 40 thousand dollars to replace all of their equipment and they're going to have to do that in the next two years. So this grant was the first step to help them pay for it.

Pending weather and other possible setbacks, the new three-bay airport fire station has a completion date set for October 2018, according to Ron Burnett, job superintendent at Turn Key.

MAHG Architecture of Fort Smith designed the new fire station large enough to accommodate the airport’s new aircraft fire and rescue fire truck. The new truck and two other restored aircraft fire rescue trucks were acquired following a change in mission in 2014 for the local Arkansas Air National Guard to a remotely piloted aircraft unit.

The airport and the Arkansas Air National Guard unit formerly had a joint-use agreement that called for aircraft fire protection from the 188th Fighter Wing in exchange for use of 140 acres at the airport for Ebbing Air National Guard Base. A token $1 a year was part of the deal. A new joint-use agreement has been in the works.

Becky Pickard, lead emergency medical technician for the volunteer fire department, said fire engines come within about 2 inches of taking the eaves off the building, and when too much snow accumulates on the sidewalk outside the station, engines aren't able to get out. One other fire engine housed at the station has to make a multiple-point turn just to exit the building, and customizing the ambulance the department purchased a few years back added about $50,000 to the original $100,000 price tag.

Every year the National Fire Protection Association holds a Fire Prevention Week in efforts to educate the community on how to prevent and escape from a fire. “Every second counts, plan two ways out,” is this year’s theme and the Lafayette Fire Department is tackling this message head-on.

The Fire Department is using the new Fire Safety House for Fire Prevention Week classes throughout Friday. Kids of all ages can visit and learn at 8:30 and 10:30 A.M.at the Central Fire Station.

Peake, is the lone original member of Task Force 8 and he described the early days of the Urban Search and Rescue squad. “In 1991 the program was established nationally. I was a Rescue Captain at the time in San Diego Fire and I was assigned to the city’s only heavy rescue unit. When San Diego was selected for a task force, we made it a regional team. We carry 210 members and we can deploy 70 people at a time on an incident. We are three deep and have a water rescue team, dog handlers, doctors, and structural engineers. There are thousands of firefighters in the region and we have a max of 210 in California Task Force 8. It’s considered a privilege to get selected. Most of the task force members have spent thousands of dollars of their own money and time to get their training.”

Peake has responded to most of the major disasters in the past two decades as a member of Task Force 8, including being in charge of the task force at 9-11, working the still-burning World Trade Center for 10 days.

And he was part of the unit which worked Hurricane Katrina, being in the New Orleans area for 22 days. Peake recalled the natural catastrophe and said, “We had the Navy flying Chinooks for us, and we loaded our boats in the helicopter every morning.” Peake later showed me photos from the flooded areas in and around New Orleans. Task Force members paddled their boats through and among houses, rescuing residents from the rooftops. For guidance for their boats, they tried to stay inside the telephone and power poles that normally align the streets.