Marty Kunkel could have looked forward to some quiet, rather uneventful years in the latter part of his career when he became chief of the Sugar Grove (Ill.) Fire Protection District in 2005, after retiring from another municipality.

The district covers 34 square miles with a population of about 14,000. It includes all of Sugar Grove Township, a portion of neighboring Blackberry Township, and portions of the villages of Sugar Grove and Montgomery. Both villages include sparkling new subdivisions, small businesses, limited retail shops and a few restaurants. Situated about 45 miles southwest of Chicago, both are surrounded by open fields, with many working farms in the area.

But amid the blend of rural tranquility and modern suburbia lies the Aurora Airport, just across Route 30 and practically a stone's throw from the fire department. Kunkel knew that protecting the nearby airport presented extraordinary challenges that included not only fighting fuel-fed fires, but learning the nuances of Federal Aviation Administration jargon. He wanted to meet the challenge head-on and he identified the airport as a target hazard.

The Aurora Airport is a general aviation airport with an FAA control tower. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and handles about 120,000 flights per year. More than 300 aircraft are based on the field, from corporate jets to Piper Cubs. No airlines are represented. About 70% of the flights are recreational and most of the others are business related; it is common to see military c-130s or an occasional 727. The airport has three runways: one is 7,000 feet, another 5,500 feet and a third runway is 3,200 feet. A fourth runway of 2,800 feet is scheduled to open later this year.

“Aurora is a reliever airport,” says Robert Rieser, the airport's director. “Our mission is to keep the little guys away from Midway or O'Hare [in Chicago]. But our runways are built so that anything that lands at those airports can land here.

“It doesn't happen often. But about eight years ago, the pilot of a United Express flight made an emergency landing here. His indicator light went on and he thought there was a fire in the cargo section. He was able to land without incident in six minutes. An exhaust pipe had separated and set the sensors off and there was no problem. But a 747 could land here in an emergency.”

According to the Airports Council International North America, there are 2,573 general aviation airports in the United States. Of these, 274 are reliever airports in major metropolitan areas.

Because the Aurora Airport does not have scheduled flights, it is not considered an FAA indexed airport. This means there are no regulations requiring that the fire department that protects it be certified in fighting airport fires. But that didn't matter to Kunkel.

When Kunkel became chief in 2005, he became the Sugar Grove department's first full-time employee. He hired David Adler in 2006 as his deputy and chief of operations, and the department became full-time in June of that year. Previously, it had been staffed with paid-on-call firefighters and paramedics. Kunkel liked that Adler had considerable technical experience and is a pilot.

“We were both in agreement that we needed to address the operational issues of the airport,” Kunkel says. “The key component was realizing that it was important to assess the situation not only in terms of how many passengers each plane carried, but in the size of the fuel load.”

“Some aspects of aircraft firefighting can be very dangerous,” Adler says. “We currently experience aircraft landing with fuel loads exceeding 20,000 gallons of jet fuel. Additional aircraft hazards include radioactive materials, flammable solids and high-pressure corrosive fluids, to name a few. Additionally, we needed to be prepared for one of these flying fuel tankers crashing short of the runway in a residential subdivision.

“We also knew that time is of paramount importance,” Adler says. “If there is a fire, firefighters have only three to four minutes before it permeates the skin of an aircraft. We were also concerned about those critical 60 minutes after an incident called the trauma ‘golden hour,’ after which the chances of survival greatly decrease. Additionally, we have to be prepared for mass-casualty incidents in conjunction with an aircraft down.”

According to Kunkel and Adler, there is an aircraft incident every three to four weeks at the Aurora Airport, when a pilot declares an emergency situation to the control tower. Since Kunkel took over, none of these incidents has resulted in a crash with a fire, but Sugar Grove firefighters respond every time.

In 2006, Kunkel and Adler met with Rieser and other airport officials signed a working agreement. It called for all Sugar Grove fire personnel to be certified in aircraft rescue and firefighting techniques, and for the department to acquire specialized airport firefighting equipment.

The agreement covered what might have been a huge obstacle: budgeting. Because the Aurora Airport does not serve airlines and is not indexed, it receives no federal funding. It also falls into a non-profit status that limits the tax base for Sugar Grove. As part of the agreement, the city of Aurora, which runs the airport, gives the fire department $10,000 at the beginning of each year. The funds are earmarked for aircraft rescue/firefighting training.

The agreement also allows the department to charge a responsible party $125 per hour per vehicle and $35 per hour for each firefighter when responding to an airport incident. These fees are based on the schedule which Illinois fire departments are allowed to charge for help in cleaning up hazmat spills.

“This is strictly to recover costs,” Kunkel says. “We don't make a profit and if we are at the airport only briefly, we don't charge anything.”

The value of the agreement is evident. In January, a pilot mistakenly retracted his landing gear, and the airplane slammed into the runway at 100 mph. Fortunately, there was no fire and the pilot wasn't injured. But Sugar Grove firefighters were there and ready, and they were able to lift the twin-engine Bonanza aircraft up far enough for the landing gears to be lowered. This saved the owner of the aircraft thousands of dollars in repair bills, Adler says. The fire department billed the pilot for services, and the pilot can turn the bill over to his insurance company.

The city of Aurora also bought the department two used aircraft rescue firefighting vehicles, each equipped with aqueous film-forming foam approved by the FAA. One also carries 500 pounds of Purple-K extinguishing agent. The agreement even allows the fire department to receive an impact fee based the on square feet of any new building construction at the airport.

In 2007, the department began training all full- and part-time personnel in specialized aircraft firefighting/rescue techniques. Firefighters and paramedics participate in 40 hours of classroom work which is followed by eight hours of live-fire response training. The eight hours are provided free at the training facility at O'Hare Airport. Materials for the classroom work come from the office of the Illinois fire marshal.

The classroom training was conducted twice last year. Additional training will be scheduled this year as needed to accommodate all new personnel. The department is made up of 26 full-time employees and 35 paid-on-call firefighters and paramedics.

The training facility at O'Hare is directed by Lt. Tom Wagner of the Chicago Fire Department. He is an expert in airport firefighting techniques and has conducted crash investigations for the FAA and for the National Transportation Safety Board. At O'Hare, trainees battle propane-fed fires in the wheel and brake area, in the jet engine and in the fuselage of a simulated 737. They also engage in cockpit rescues amid flames that can send the temperature soaring to over 600°F.

The hands-on training does not end at O'Hare. As part of the agreement with the Aurora Airport, Sugar Grove conducts its own live response drill each November. The November 2007 drill simulated the fiery crash of a twin-engine plane with passengers.

“The results exceeded our expectations and we learn from each one,” Adler says. “We started several diversionary fires outside of the aircraft and our firefighters had live victims strewn about the taxiway, in addition to several training mannequins trapped in the burning aircraft. Our firefighters didn't take the bait of the diversionary fires. They prioritized the rescues and firefighting tactics.”

As a bonus, the Fox Valley Sport Aviation Association, a local volunteer organization of the Young Eagles, which is dedicated to acquainting youth with flying, takes Sugar Grove firefighters on flights from and to the Aurora Airport at no charge. Adler says it helps the firefighters get a pilot's unique perspective of the airport and an understanding of where an aircraft is located geographically over the town when it announces, for example, “I'm on a left base for Runway 27.”

Kunkel believes that offering the certification training helps in building morale and in recruitment.

“All of our firefighters and paramedics want to do a good job,” Kunkel says. “They have been very open to the training, and willing. It helps in recruiting when you're proactive.”

The training also has helped build a reputation for the Sugar Grove department. Personnel from other fire departments have participated in the training, and three Illinois departments that have airports in their jurisdiction — DeKalb, Mokena and Lockport — are interested in replicating it.

Adler says he has received a very favorable response from pilots and staff in the airport's control tower.

“We've developed an excellent rapport with them,” Adler says.

“It's to the benefit of everyone to have Sugar Grove take the initiative to have its staff trained,” says Rieser. “Knowing that the fire department is professionally trained is a point I can use when I talk to companies who are interested in using the Aurora Airport for corporate flights. They want their folks as safe as possible.”