‘This group made it happen’: Firefighting training center 25 years in the making opens at Harper College

Scott Mackeben was just a rookie on the Palatine Fire Department when he remembers talk of a regional firefighter training center on the nearby Harper College campus.

In the ensuing years, fire chiefs from across the Northwest suburbs clamored for a centralized hub to train firefighters both new and old.

“This has been a dream in this area for 25-plus years. I’ve been on the department 26 years, and this was talked about way back then. But this group made it happen,” said Mackeben, now Palatine’s chief, speaking to a cadre of fire department brass from across the Northwest suburbs last week at Harper’s new $9.3 million, 9,040-square-foot Emergency Services Training Center.

“The turnout of the local fire departments is a testament to the impact that this facility is going to have on this area, and I think the (college’s) board (of trustees) saw that when the fire departments showed up in force to talk about this,” Mackeben said at the Wednesday ribbon cutting. “This is an amazing example of an educational facility like Harper listening to the needs of its community partners and making it a reality.”

Planning efforts for the fire training center reignited in 2022 among college President Avis Proctor and local fire chiefs, who had long been sending their new recruits to the nine-week fire academies in Glenview and Romeoville, Elgin Community College, McHenry County College, and sometimes downstate.

“This facility exists because we listened to our local fire departments, who told us that the demands on first responders are increasing, the environments they face are more complex, and the training required to meet those challenges must evolve,” Proctor said. “And importantly, because they were leaving our local community to train in facilities outside of our district.”

At the heart of the facility is a four-story burn tower for hands-on, scenario-based live training — already one of the more prominent buildings on the northwest side of the sprawling Palatine community college’s campus.

It’s designed to replicate real conditions and scenarios firefighters will face in the field. The first floor resembles a single-family home; the second, an apartment building; the third, an open layout warehouse space; the fourth, a high-rise office.

Five burn props that run on natural gas ignite in various places throughout the structure. On the apartment floor, for example, flames shoot down the hallway from a small black box attached to the wall. Realistic-looking theater smoke fills the space, while audio of dogs barking, people coughing and smoke detectors blaring is piped in.

“All that stuff adds more realism to what our firefighters are going to experience,” said Norm Bemis, coordinator of the college’s fire science technology and emergency and disaster management program. “We’re going to do everything in this building that a fire department will do in a building that is on fire. They’ll be pulling hose lines in here. They’ll be flowing a lot of water in here.”

The concrete and brick building has a few furnishings — a children’s toy set is among the props — but it’s essentially bare bones: no wood or combustibles, no glass windows but metal doors in their place, and floors pitched to drain water to large metal downspouts.

Firefighters will train in fire attack, search and rescue, ventilation, ladder use, firefighter survival, technical rescues and coordinated operations, said Bemis, who spent 25 years with the Palatine Fire Department and retired as division chief of training in 2024.

There’s room for as many as five fire companies in the building at one time — about 20 firefighters with gear — the same as would respond to a typical house fire, Bemis said.

What doesn’t the building have? An elevator.

“We don’t use elevators in a fire,” quipped Joanne Ivory, the college’s dean of career and technical programs, who came to the ribbon-cutting ceremony fully adorned in a firefighter suit, helmet and oxygen tank.

Ivory built relationships with the fire chiefs to make sure the school’s programs aligned with the current practice and realities of firefighting.

Primary users of the burn tower and a neighboring small single-story classroom building are expected to be new firefighters from area departments working on their entry-level basic operations certification.

Current firefighters seeking advanced skills, certifications and continuing education will use the facility, too.

About a third of the Palatine Fire Department’s 91-person staff are new hires over the past four years, and Mackeben anticipates another wave of retirements in 2028 will bring on many more new faces to the department. Most, if not all, will train at Harper, he said.

“To be able to have the actual fire and the heat to train in is key,” he said.

Mackeben described the training center as several exits on a firefighter’s career “road map.”

“They start down that road here as a brand-new firefighter,” he said. “They get to stop at the Harper exit several times as they need more education and training to advance their career. They will work to become engineers, special team members and officers, and get their degree along the way.”

The bulk of the project was funded by the school’s operations and maintenance fund. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin also secured a $1 million federal grant — $540,000 went toward construction and the rest is for technology, equipment and training programs. State Reps. Nicolle Grasse and Nabeela Syed also secured $500,000 in state funding.

First classes are set to begin this summer.