UNDER
FIRE
The Illinois Fire Service Institute trains first responders in a variety of disaster scenarios.
Across 28 acres of carefully engineered chaos, firefighters and emergency responders practice the skills that make a difference when lives are on the line.
Contributors
Written by Abigail Bobrow
Photography courtesy of Illinois Fire Rescue Service Institute and Catalyst Design
The top of the Harper Hardware building rises above the unkempt brush along Windsor Road on the edge of campus. No one has ever shopped there, and no one ever will. It’s one of dozens of props, facsimiles, and full-scale training environments scattered across the Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) — a place where disasters are built on purpose so first responders can prepare for the real thing.
Each year, nearly 60,000 firefighters, EMTs, and other emergency responders travel to Champaign for training unlike anything offered in a traditional classroom. Instead of taking notes in a Psychology 101 lecture, they spend their days crawling through smoke-filled buildings, extricating “victims” from mangled vehicles, navigating collapsed structures, responding to hazardous materials incidents, battling wildfires, and conducting grain bin and wilderness rescues. More than 1,600 courses are taught annually on the institute’s 28-acre training ground, where the buildings don’t simply stand — they burn, collapse, and challenge students to think under pressure.
IFSI has been preparing firefighters for more than a century. In its earliest years, trainees practiced in temporary structures on Illinois Field. By 1928, instruction had outgrown those makeshift facilities, and a permanent brick-and-steel training building opened at Sixth and Healey streets, establishing Illinois as a national leader in firefighter education.
The training grounds have continued to evolve alongside the profession, and the footprint expanded to include a wide variety of kinds of scenarios, including Rescue City, the institute’s structural-collapse training area. Rescue City construction began on September 10, 2001. Originally intended to support homeland security training, the simulated office and residential buildings took on immediate new relevance after the terrorist attacks the following day, preparing first responders for emergencies that had suddenly become part of a new reality. IFSI is the oldest continuous fire training institute in the country, and as firefighting grows more complex, so does the curriculum. New technologies, emerging hazards, and changing building materials continually reshape the course offerings, ensuring that first responders leave Champaign ready for whatever emergency awaits.
