Ask any small boy what he wants to be when he grows up, and 90 percent of them will answer, a fireman. Why? Because they love those big red trucks.

Ask a fireman why he chose the field, and he will tell you: to make a difference.

Lake Zurich's fire department was organized officially as a volunteer fire department in 1933. The single truck was stored in the garage of the Fire Captain. There were 13 volunteer firemen.

By 1976, Lake Zurich was the first community in Lake County to add paramedics to its crew of nine full-time employees. The fire service continued growing, and today the Lake Zurich Rural Fire Protection District employs 41 full-time firefighters, 19 part-time, two assistant fire marshals, and two secretaries. Three of the full-time firefighters are women. All the firefighters are rigorously trained as state certified paramedics and firefighters and every month go through an additional 20 hours of training per month. The firefighters work 24 hour shifts, living at the station, cooking their meals, sleeping, and waiting for the Klaxon that will send them out on an emergency. They check their gear when they arrive for work, and it stands ready to be used while they are on the shift. After the 24 hours on-duty, they are off 48 hours.

The Lake Zurich Fire Department has one of the few in-house gyms in the country, and the employees are regularly tested for physical fitness. Their role in the community is important. They do more than just provide fire protection. They also offer CPR training courses, fire prevention lectures in the schools and community at large, as well as enforcing local fire codes, and maintaining special teams for hazardous material emergencies, water rescues, and tech rescue which includes confined spaces, and high-angle rescues.

The department also functions in a greater capacity than the original fire stations. Today there are three stations serving the greater area. The main station on Buesching Road, in the event of a large disaster would function as the control center. There, the teams are ready for disaster management, chemical emergencies, mass casualties, and following the disaster plan for the village. The management plans have been implemented three times in the last six years: during the ice storm in 1992, when half the village lost power; during the evacuation crisis when a hazardous material truck spilled on Rand Road last spring.

The equipment has changed significantly in the last 64 years. The three building department have four engines, one tanker truck that holds 3000 gallons of water, four paramedic trucks, one squad truck, one command vehicle, three staff vehicles, a brush truck and two boats. The expansion coincides with the expansion of the communities served by the department, including Hawthorn Woods, Kildeer, Deerpark, Echo Lake, Forest Lake, and parts of Barrington, Palatine, and Long Grove.

Today's firefighters are far different than the guy next door. They are highly trained professionals who spend much of their working lives sitting at the fire station, waiting for the inevitable emergency that will test their skill and nerve, and sometimes make them pay the ultimate price. And they get to drive those big shiny red trucks.