Dillon celebrates 50 years as Braidwood fire district trustee

A lot has changed at the Braidwood Fire Protection District over the past 50 years.

But there has been one constant for the district and the fire department since 1973—the presence of district trustee Mike Dillon.

Last month, Dale Simpson, Operations Director for the State Fire Marshal’s Office, presented Dillon with a recognition plaque for a half century of service.

Dillon became a trustee in 1973, almost on accident.

A firefighter with the district since 1969, Dillon said there were around 20 firefighters on the roster, working with two engines, a small boat, and a Chevy panel truck that was the rescue unit.

Then one day, a casual conversation during a car ride changed some things.

“One of the trustees of the district and I were going to junior college for the fire science program, to get our Associated Degrees in fire science,” Dillon said. “We were driving home from class one night, and we were talking and he said he had to find somebody to replace a guy who just left town and moved out to Arizona, so now we’ve only got two people on the board. And I said, trustee, what’s that entail? He said, are you interested, but I said I want to know what it entails first. I never heard anymore. I was driving, I dropped him off at home, and two days later just as I was getting home from work, a car pulls in the yard and it was the fire district attorney, and he said here, I’ve got these papers for you to sign. I said all right, I signed it, and I’ve been here ever since.

“Over the years, it hasn’t just been me,” he continued. “It’s been a combination of everybody in the department, answering calls and stuff like that. At that time, I could still be a trustee and be on the fire department. So, I could still respond to the calls. Then, in 1978, I became the fire marshal out at Dresden Nuclear Plant, and I spent 30 years in fire protection out there.”

Since 1973, Dillon has served as a trustee, administrator and director of the fire district, responsible for budgets and accounting for tax dollars, and submitting grants for funding. He wrote a grant that helped the department secure safety equipment, including air packs for firefighters.

“We were able to outfit the entire department with air packs, which we never had before. And then there were some other small equipment grants through the fire marshal’s office that we got for extra turnout gear, things like that,” Dillon said.

As a trustee, one of the biggest jobs is planning for the future on a very strict budget. That means not just the three trustees making decisions, but involving the department as a whole to decide what is needed, what works best, and taking everyone’s thoughts into account.

“When we decided that, we had a truck that was 30 years old and it wouldn’t be running much longer, we’ve got to replace it,” Dillon said. “We set up committees with the firefighters and the trustees oversaw the committees because we knew how much money we had in the bucket to spend, or if we had to go out for a loan. For several years we could never pay for the trucks, they were just way above what we could save in a period of time. And now, we’re looking at a new tanker that will probably be here in a couple of years. But, we’re working on it now because we’ve got to write the specs, we’ve got to get it published, and then when we get the bids review those and then determine who is going to build the truck. Once we give them that reward, it’s three years before we get a fire truck.”

Dillon said the process for getting a new truck these days is much different then the first time he helped the district get a new engine, back in 1977.

“To me, it was out of this world. We had to spend $77,000 for that fire truck. The truck we’re working at now to get in three years from now is going to be $950,000,” he said. “We’re planning ahead, we’re looking ahead. Anything we’ve had to do, we’ve done as a team and as a community.”

Dillon said there have been a lot of changes over the past 50 years. Not only has the department grown, but so has the red tape, such as security around training with the nuclear power plant after Sept. 11, and changes to school responses and training that often mean waiting on okays form the regional school district

But, he said, education and training are where is passion is when it comes to the next generation of firefighters.

“The education is just entwined in what I really believe in,” he said. “We’ve got some land from the city down by the water treatment plant, we’re going to put an actual fire training tower up there where we can actually have live burns. We have a training tower here, but we can only use theatrical smoke.”

Dillon is the president of the Illinois Association of Fire Districts, representing 800 districts across the state. He spends time with much smaller departments that have budgets even smaller than Braidwood did in 1973.

“We were counting our pennies back then. It’s just kind of ingrained in us that we want to do the best we can for the community, but we don’t want to tax their ears off either,” he said. “We’ve been really fortunate in having part time people and paid on call people. We’ve been able to man the station with those people, so we don’t have to pay extra benefits. But we do have now, as of last December, three full time firefighters.”

Dillon exited the department’s roster in 1989 when the state passed a law prohibiting trustees from being on the active squad, a decision that was ultimately reversed.

He also now runs for the trustee role every four years, as it has become elected instead of appointed, but there have never really been any challengers.

“My whole life has been in fire protection. I don’t really have any hobbies, it’s all fire protection, fire safety. When I left Dresden, I took a year off and [worked as] a fire protection consultant,” he said.

So what has 50-plus years in the fire service taught him?

“Fighting fires is dangerous, and I learned the hard way, going through some backdraft explosions that fortunately I survived, but now they’ve got training equipment out there to teach the firefighters what to do and what to look for when they get into situations like that,” Dillon said. “The best thing is working with the fire service institute down at the University of Illinois, that’s our state fire academy. I’m now a senior advisor on their review teams, but I was able to be a guinea pig with setting up programs, having the people create the programs and lesson plans and then sit in class and critique what we were going to be teaching the firefighters coming in and some of the officers. I like that a lot.”

Dillon has spent his entire life in Braidwood, and jokes that he and his wife Dawn share a century together.

“We’ve been married 104 years, 52 a piece. She’s been married just as long as I have.”

Dillon said that while he looks back on all the progress the department has made over the past 50 years, he’s also excited for what’s to come.

“It’s been a long time, it went by very quickly,” Dillon said. “I can’t say enough about the firefighters and the firemen that we’ve had over the last 50 years. It made the trustees’ jobs real easy, and we’re able to work together. We’ve had some ups and downs and some arguments here and there with everybody, but we were able to always work it out… We really appreciate the work that we’ve done as a team to keep the fire department going and keep improving.”