More than 150 attendees — among them Congressional leaders and staff members, and more than 100 fire chiefs — participated last week in the sixth annual Illinois Fire Service Home Day, an event designed to help state and local legislators understand the importance of grant funding.

“Forty-six percent of all fire departments lack basic fire training and 85% of the departments [in the U.S.] lack the ability to handle a technical rescue,” said Don Mobley, a FEMA program specialist who spoke at the event.

Mobley said that half of the fire departments are using fire trucks that are more than 15 years old, and “10,000 fire stations house in-service vehicles that are over 30 years old. The good news, these numbers are better than before the [Assistance to Firefighters Grant] program.

Congress recently reauthorized the FIRE Grants program through 2016, but “there is a sunset clause that says ‘no more,’” said Hank Clemmensen, chief of the Palatine Fire Department and second vice president of the IAFC. He cautioned attendees not to wait until the end to campaign for additional funding

“Every dollar we spend in preparedness saves us $12 in response,” he said.

Clemmensen also encouraged fire chiefs to contact their senators to support the D Block reallocation bill for improvements in emergency communications. “It has to be built in to our mission-critical standard; it’s our being prepared for the future,” he said.

The event was held at the Illinois Mutual Aid Box Alarm System’s headquarters in Wheeling. The 72,000 square-foot facility houses the Midwest regional emergency-response equipment, which includes six Urban Search and Rescue vehicles, sea containers of supplies, six specialty vehicles, compressors and six 24-foot trailers of equipment.

More than 425 pieces of additional MABAS equipment are located throughout the state. MABAS currently has 42 hazmat teams, 41 technical-rescue teams, 16 water-rescue teams and 25 decontamination units.

Jay Reardon, president and CEO of MABAS, provided an update on the system in Illinois, which now extends to other states. MABAS is requested 800 times a year, and has responded to tornadoes across Illinois, as well as hazmat incidents and train accidents. “We don’t care what patch you are wearing on your sleeve — when we respond, we serve as one team,” he said. “One phone call and the wheels start turning: simple, centralized and swift.”

MABAS — which sent 900 responders to Hurricane Katrina — learned the importance of becoming self-sustaining. To that end, it currently houses equipment and gear such as tent cities with sleeping accommodations and the ability to feed its crews. “We don’t become a disaster in the disaster; we support ourselves,” Reardon said.

Directing his comments to the legislators and staffers, Reardon stressed the importance of continued state and federal resources for terrorism and disaster response, as well as the need to name the MABAS US&R team to the position of a federal US&R team. “US&R is a closed club, and we want to make MABAS the 29^th US&R team,” he said. “We are ready and capable.”

Reardon also mentioned the unique partnership MABAS has with UPS, which provides the trucks and drivers to pull the MABAS trailers in emergency situations.

“We have done a lot in the past 10 years, we don’t want to lose that investment,” Reardon said.

The meeting was co-chaired by Tom Deegan, fire chief of Schiller Park, Ill., who was representing Illinois Metropolitan Fire Chiefs; Paul Darley, president and CEO of Darley & Co., who was representing the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association; and Janet Wilmoth, editorial director of FIRE CHIEF, who was representing the Fire and Emergency Manufacturers Association.