ROCK FALLS, Ill. — The Rock Falls Fire Department started its day Wednesday preparing for search and rescue training exercises.
The Whiteside County Health Department donated a house next door to its expanding clinic. The house will be torn down later this month and become extra parking spaces, but in the meantime, the old house is the fire department's training facility.
Most of the time, Rock Falls firefighters simulate training scenarios at the fire station.
"We don't get these very often, maybe a couple a year and they're in varying stages of disrepair," Deputy Chief Kyle Sommers said. "Some structures we're very limited on what we're able to do based on the condition of the home. This home is actually one of the better scenarios where we can have a lot of options on what we can do."
The department set up theatrical smoke so firefighters could practice searching through a structure blindly to find victims.
It's working with the Sterling Fire Department to design and build a new permanent training facility. It will be built at the industrial park in Rock Falls.
"We started doing this after the line of duty death of Captain Garrett Ramos from Sterling Fire. We formed a joint committee where we started discussing what we would like to see from a joint training facility," Sommers said. "We've adapted some of our training to those specific scenarios like we suffered with Captain Ramos. But if nothing else, it's just giving us that encouragement to get out and train more often anytime we can."
Just minutes into Wednesday morning's training exercise, the Rock Falls firefighters were called to put their training into action. A house fire was reported at 204 East 11th St.
Neighbors told News 8 they heard what sounded like an explosion before seeing the fire. Next-door neighbor Susan Marliere said she first saw just a small brush fire on the side of the house.
"I heard a few little pops and I'm trying to rush and get my dogs and get myself together," she said. "By the time I got dressed and went back outside, the whole side of the house was gone."
Another neighbor told News 8 he saw someone giving a dog oxygen.
"They had to do some searches just like they were going to practice over there at the training house," Sommers said. "They did do that immediately when they got on scene. They did have some reports that there might be people inside... There's a reason why we train so much. And that's exactly the reason so that we can put it to work in real-life scenarios."
"Very, very glad that they go through extensive training on this and they know exactly what to do and they can stay calm through the process," Marliere said. "Without them being here, who knows if my house would have been totally gone?"
The cause of the fire and whether any injuries were reported have yet to be confirmed.