October 09, 2019

Duckworth Tours Illinois Fire Service Institute, Highlighting Support for First-Responders

 

[CHAMPAIGN, IL] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) visited the Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI), touring its facility and meeting with IFSI leadership. During her visit, Duckworth met with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Robert J. Jones, IFSI Director Royal Mortenson and IFSI Deputy Director Jim Keiken, to discuss the work IFSI does training more than 60,000 to-be first-responders per year across Illinois. Photos from today’s tour are available here.

“Firefighters in communities throughout Illinois risk their lives by running towards danger when others run away,” Duckworth said. “We owe it to them to make sure they have the best training available, and I’m proud of the work the Illinois Fire Service Institute is doing to prepare the next generation of firefighters. I’ll keep doing all that I can to support firefighters and the work and mission of the Illinois Fire Service Institute.”

Duckworth has been a strong advocate for first-responders and has worked to make sure they have the resources and protections they need to continue serving their communities. Duckworth has supported the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program every year she’s been in Congress, with more than 80 stations and organizations throughout Illinois recently receiving more than $20 million total in funding, including more than $400,000 to the IFSI. Earlier this year, Duckworth helped work to secure full funding for the Firefighter Cancer Registry, which collects and monitors the prevalence, incidence and types of cancers among firefighters. Duckworth also helped introduce the bipartisan First Responders Survivors Support Act to support the families of fallen first-responders by increasing the death benefits available to surviving family members.

IFSI is the statutory state training and education organization for the Illinois fire service and other first-responders. IFSI delivers more than 14,000 class hours to students online, on campus and at regional training centers throughout the state. The Champaign campus includes 28 acres of real-life training props and features one of the few locations in the U.S. that still uses live-fire structural burn training.

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