Mike Gilgenberg and Brian Hoogervorst were doing some flying without leaving the ground on Aug. 10.
The two drone pilots were doing demonstrations as part of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) Division 24 open house at its headquarters, 17555 Ashland Ave. in Homewood.

Mutual aid still involves fire departments routinely providing support to each other. Megan Tipton, community relations specialist with the Homewood Fire Department, explained the complex system that automatically sends supporting departments to the scene of a fire or other emergency based on incident location and proximity of responding departments.

MABAS has grown to include a number of specialties that individual municipal fire departments often don’t have the resources to provide on their own, but the 23 departments that belong to the organization, by pooling resources, are able to provide.

The drone team is one of those specialties.

“We use them for missing people, haz mat (hazardous materials), fires and events,” Gilgenberg said. “We do lots of events (like) parades. We work together with the police departments.”

Having a view of events from the air gives drone pilots a perspective that can help incident commanders on the ground make better decisions, he said.

Hoogervorst said the team is often called out for missing people, especially those who might be difficult to communicate with, like dementia sufferers or people on the autism spectrum.

Gilgenberg said the members of the drone team are all FAA certified pilots in addition to other specialized training.

Fire investigations

Aaron Anderson of the Chicago Heights Fire Department was one of several fire investigators on hand to answer questions about his team’s work.

MABAS 24 investigators provide a quick response to the scene of any fire the local firefighter consider suspicious. The MABAS team does an initial assessment.

Anderson said investigators often get called out while firefighters are nearing the end of extinguishing the blaze.

“We interview the residents and the witnesses. We canvas the area for doorbell cameras or security cameras,” he said. “We follow burn patterns and anything else to try to see if we can figure out what actually caused the fire.”

If the MABAS investigators see evidence that the fire was intentionally set, they will call in the State Fire Marshal’s office to continue the investigation.

Demonstrating capabilities

Kevin Welsh said the open house was specifically designed to show municipal officials from member communities what MABAS 24 does for them and their constituents.

Welsh is the fire chief in Glenwood, the president of MABAS 24 and the vice president of MABAS Illinois.

He said elected officials, especially, can sometimes change every few years, depending on how elections go, and he wanted to make sure everyone currently serving on a village board is well informed about MABAS 24’s capabilities and how they complement and extend the town’s resources.

MABAS 24 has 23 member departments and covers an area from Interstate 57 in the west to the Indiana state line in the east, from Riverdale in the north to Park Forest in the south.

“It costs each town about $8,500 a year,” he said. “That’s a hell of a value for their investment. It’s like a giant insurance policy. And they won’t know that unless they can see it.”

One of the village officials Welsh wanted to reach was Homewood Trustee Allisa Opyd, who toured the various teams throughout the facility. She said she was impressed with the support MABAS 24 adds to the member communities.

“I think that we should all feel so much better that in case of an emergency we have this wonderful group taking care of us,” she said.

Welsh also wanted to use the showcase to demonstrate that MABAS 24 is not standing pat but is pushing to improve and modernize.

He said the organization’s leaders continually ask, “Are we doing things right? Is there a better way to do it? And we’ve continued that process.”

Recruiting personnel

Welsh noted that a main focus recently has been to recruit and retain personnel.

“Every fire chief in our region is challenged with trying to find firefighters and paramedics who will get on a job and stay,” he said.

MABAS 24 has partnered with Prairie State College to offer firefighter basic training, emergency medical technician training and paramedic training.

Chad Vlietstra, an assistant professor at Prairie State, was on hand to discuss the school’s training programs.

He said the school not only offers courses but helps students find sponsorship for the fire academy by introducing them to local fire chiefs. Department sponsorship helps get students the expensive gear they need as they move through the program.