Above, Harlem-Roscoe Fire responded to Porter's Pit to rescue a worker buried in sand after a wall of sand collapsed around him.

Technical Rescues

Left, a crane is used to raise a worker that had fallen into a tall concrete tube. Right, EMS work to free a man stuck in a basement window.

Collapse Training

July of 2004, Harlem-Roscoe conducted a specialized training on a home that was being demolished by the owners. Scenarios included those for rescue after a possible tornado or explosion that leveled a home trapping a family inside.

Stateline Technical Rescue Team

What would happen if a tornado leveled homes in Roscoe, burying residents under debris? Or an accident on a bridge in South Beloit leaves a semi dangling over the bridge with the driver still inside? Or workers digging a trench in Rockton get buried by dirt? Would the local fire department be trained and have enough equipment to rescue these victims? The answer is YES! Not only do the individual departments do their own extensive training, but they are also a part of a bigger team when extraordinary technical rescue is needed. The "Stateline Technical Rescue Team" can be activated immediately if needed through the local Mutal Aid Box Alarm (MABAS) system.

"The Stateline Technical Rescue Team started in 1996 as a partnership between the City of Beloit, Town of Beloit, and the City of South Beloit." explains Scott Fisher from South Beloit Fire. He continues, "Today we have ten fire departments in three counties including Rock, Walworth, and Winnebago. These departments include: City of Beloit, Town of Beloit, Town of Turtle, Clinton, Sharon, Fontana, Janesville, Harlem-Roscoe, Rockton, and City of South Beloit. This arrangement allows pooling of resources and elimination of any duplication of efforts. Financially speaking these smaller departments could not provide this level of protection by themselves. We have highly-trained personnel and equipment for rope rescue, slope evacuation, confined space, trench rescue, excavation, and structural collapse. Currently we have four equipment trailers including: two black for rope/confined space rescue, one white for collapse/heavy rescue, and one red for trench/excavation. The team trains four hours per month on Saturday mornings from 8am to noon"

Harlem-Roscoe Fire's support roll to Stateline is on the trench rescue, MABAS alarm side. Our equipment can also be utilized for structural collapse. We also have confined space, low angle, and some high angle equipment. Lt. Aaron Miller, Lt. Chad Radke, Ramona Baldoni-Lake and Jim Johnson have been active in the monthly trainings of the team, but the trainings are open to all firefighters on the department.

The 'red' equipment trailer (pictured above) is housed at Harlem-Roscoe Fire Station #1. The trailer is 20 ft. long has a maximum axel weight of 5200 lbs. Some of the equipment contained in the trailer: Portable trench box, Fin Form, pneumatic struts (Prospan and Air Shore struts pictured below), portable gas generator, shovels, folding ladder, air cart (two 4500psi bottles), two 200 ft. umbilical air supply lines, personal harnesses for high, low angle, and confined space, confined space tripod, wench, Rit kit, ropes and webbing, carabineers, figure '8' ascenders, SCBA's, hard hats, stokes stretcher, gloves, and safety glasses.

Team Training Snapshots. . .