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2 • The Putnam County Record • Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Fighting fires 101 Serving Putnam County Since 1868
High school class teaches firefighting basics
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LASALLE — At the signal, the men and women start putting on their firefighting gear. Pants, boots, jackets, air tanks, helmets, masks and gloves all must be secure and ready to go as the firefighters go into harm’s way risking their life to save the lives of people they probably don’t know. Today, most of the group is in full gear in about a minute and one-half. Not bad for a class of high school students. The Area Career Center at LaSalle-Peru High School added a new class this year, offering a fire safety class which introduces students to firefighting basics with an eye toward becoming professional or volunteer firefighters. There is some classroom instruction, but much of what they do is hands-on training simulating what they might do in a true emergency situation.
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By Ken Schroeder
The chief instructor for the class is Bill “Buck” Manley, who recently retired as fire chief from the Ottawa Fire Department. Assisting Manley is Tonica Volunteer Fire Department Member Rick Turri. The two men represent more than 50 years of firefighting experience from two different perspectives. “They get information from both aspects; the full-time firefighter and the part-time volunteer firefighter,” Turri said. “I think it’s great and kind of unique to have instruction from people in the field and have real experience.” Kayla Tondi of Standard is one of the students in the class, and since starting the class has gone through cadet status and been accepted as a probationary firefighter by the Standard Fire Department. She helps at the Cedar Point fire station as well. She’s currently taking Basic Emergency Medical Technician training and will be entering the Navy to become a Medic. “I got into the medical field in the Navy, and that’s what I want to get into in life,” Tondi said. “That’s an advancement for me, and I get the schooling I need,
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and I’m paid to do it.” Firefighting runs in the Tondi family. “I always wanted to be a firefighter when I grew up,” Tondi said. “I always watched the movies. My brother-in-law was a firefighter, and my sister was at one point; and I always looked up to
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Student firefighters climb a ladder in full gear to simulate conditions at a fire. The fire safety course at the Area Career Center teaches firefighting basics to high school students in Putnam, LaSalle and Bureau counties.
them. When I started the class I got more interested in it, so I applied to the Standard Fire Department.” Equipment for the class has come from fire departments throughout the area. Retired gear and equipment from Utica and Peru fire departments is used, and there’s a fully-functional fire truck courtesy of the Peru Fire Department that is used for firefighting drills. The classroom used to be used for automotive classes and still needs some work to bring it to where the instructors would like it. “There wasn’t a lot of lead time in preparing the class,” Turri said. “In fact, ‘Buck’ was hired a month before school started, and I was brought a week after.” Many of the students in the current class will be going into the military to continue their training, and Turri would like to see more students enter the program. “We need students from Bureau and Putnam counties and southern LaSalle County,” Turri said. “Firefighters are hard to come by, and they need training. Any fire department is going to be lucky when they get one of these kids.”
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