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1. Does the City of East Peoria buy food for the firefighters?

No. The firefighters are responsible for supplying their own food.

2. Does the Fire Department fill swimming pools?

No. But occasionally the Fire Department will fill dunk tanks at public events for churches or schools.

3. What is the City's ISO rating for fire protection?

In 2014 the City was rated by the ISO (Insurance Services Office) group. The City's current ISO rating is a 3.

4. How do I arrange a tour of a fire station?

To arrange a tour, call 309-698-4741, and the phone will be answered by a firefighter. He or she will ask the date you would like to have a tour and check the calendar for that day.

5. How can I schedule a speaker?

A speaker from the Fire Department can be scheduled by calling the Department's administrative assistant at 309-427-7768. She will leave a message with one of the assistant chiefs, who will return the call and then schedule a speaker.

6. Can I get my blood pressure taken?

Stop by any fire station, and the firefighters will be able to take your blood pressure, free of charge.

7. Why do an ambulance and a fire engine respond together on emergency medical calls?

This happens for several reasons:

• Often in private residences it takes more than two firefighters to help lift the gurney around furniture and move patients up and down stairs.
• Not all calls require the extra help, but often the caller is not seeing the underlying cause of the person's sickness or injury. The additional manpower becomes necessary if both of the paramedics are needed to care for the patient en route to the hospital. This eliminates time waiting for additional help to arrive to drive the ambulance to the hospital.

8. Why do you leave fire engines and ambulances idling when they are parked and/or outside of the fire stations?

There are actually specific reasons why we are unable to completely shut down the fire engines and ambulances every time that they are not in the stations.

Temperature Consistency

The City's fire and emergency medical vehicles carry a wide array of important equipment used to treat patients, fight fires and communicate with each other. Many of these items, especially the medications and sensitive and expensive medical devices we carry, would be subject to damage in certain temperature extremes. In the summer it is necessary to keep these items cool and in the winter it is necessary to keep them warm to ensure that the electronic equipment will operate properly and the medications will not suffer the ill effects of dramatic temperature changes.

Electricity Requirements

In addition to the concerns over weather conditions, a large number of items on the fire engines and ambulances require a constant charge to guarantee optimal and prolonged use. This includes but is not limited to suction units for clearing a patient's airway, thermal imaging cameras for seeing through smoke, portable radios for communication, spare batteries for cutting tools, on-board dispatch computers and flashlights for rescue operations.

In general, a larger diesel engine like those found in emergency vehicles requires more electricity to start than a standard gasoline or diesel engine that is not designed for this purpose. In addition, the electrical drain on a standard diesel operated engine, a dump truck for example, is much less than on a fire engine or ambulance for the reasons noted above. If the engines and ambulances are shut down completely for lengthy periods of time, without an outside power source, there is a slight possibility of them not starting again when needed. We do try to shut them down whenever the amount of time and temperature conditions will allow but these instances are less common than not and occur on a case-by-case basis. Manually shutting down each and every piece of equipment that causes a drain on the system is simply not possible.

When the emergency vehicles are in the station they are always plugged into a power source to keep the equipment and batteries charged, but when the vehicles are out of the station they need to rely on the power generated by allowing the vehicles to idle or run when parked.

It is our duty to the citizens to ensure that we are always operating at optimal levels when responding to emergency calls. There are times, however, when our emergency vehicles are required to be out of the station on training seminars, business pre-plans and inspections, hydrant maintenance and a litany of other "non-emergency" functions. The tools and equipment we use require us to leave the vehicles "idling" or running during these tasks unless it is for a very brief amount of time or certain other conditions are met that will allow for a shut down.