The rank structure of Brookfield’s fire department is changing.
At the village board’s June 10 meeting, Fire Chief James Adams spoke to trustees about a recommendation of his to amend the department’s rank of fire captain to battalion chief. The change would not add new positions to the fire department or impact the village’s finances, but Adams said it would allow the department to encourage professional development and help nearby communities with responses to serious fires.
“Captains currently are recognized in the fire service as an upper-level supervisory position, whereas a battalion chief is considered a low-level chief, basically your first level of chief,” Adams said at the meeting. “Our captains hold a lot of the responsibilities that battalion chiefs currently have. Their leadership qualities are along those lines.”
Brookfield employs three fire captains as part of its fire department. Captains report directly to the fire chief and oversee the village’s fire lieutenants and firefighters.
Adams said the change would allow Brookfield’s fire captains to take on greater responsibilities in the event of a serious incident in the village or a nearby community due to the fire department’s involvement in the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System. Also known as MABAS, the statewide mutual aid system allows fire departments to call on each other when their local resources aren’t enough to fight a large or complex fire.
It’s similar to NIPAS, the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System, which Brookfield’s police department joined in February.
“On a MABAS level, it’s preferred that you have a chief in the management of larger incidents,” Adams said. Brookfield’s captains are able to manage their individual companies, or groups of firefighters, “Whereas they can go on MABAS as a battalion chief and command multiple companies at that point.”
Outside of MABAS, Brookfield’s fire chief said the change would enable the village’s fire captains to take additional training courses offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“When it comes to FEMA classes — leadership and management classes — it’s harder for the captain rank to be allowed to take some of those classes, which would definitely improve their professionalism, their leadership skills and their management,” he said.
Adams said two of the village’s three fire captains had applied and been rejected from courses in the past due to their ranks being lower than those of other applicants.
“There’s company officer and advanced company officer [courses], which are basically lieutenant- and captain-level classes, and then chief officer, which digs deeper into a lot of the HR, more organizational structure, management skills and things like that,” he said. “They had applied for it two years ago, two of our captains, and, because the class had a lot of those chief officers, they were denied, so that was kind of what spurred the idea originally in my head.”
Changing the fire captains’ rank to that of battalion chief would also have one more benefit — encouraging Brookfield’s firefighters to strive for the rank.
“Another thing that this does is kind of open it up — not that I want guys to leave — but it actually opens up the opportunity to become a deputy chief or assistant chief at other departments when they retire or whenever they get to that point of their career,” Adams said.
“Overall, it increases professionalism, definitely reflects their leadership and their management [skills] they currently have, and I think our captains are well deserving of it,” he added.
Brookfield trustees do not vote to approve items at the village’s committee of the whole meetings. While the village board seemed receptive to the change, trustees will either pass or reject it at the board’s meeting on Monday, June 24.
