After 26 years, firefighter set to hang up bunker gear
By TOM MUSICK - tmusick@nwherald.com
LAKE IN THE HILLS – You might want to find a seat or wear comfortable shoes before you start a conversation with Bruce Toussaint, friends and colleagues at the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Fire Department said Friday.
“There is no such thing as a comment with him,” fire Lt. Joe Teson said Friday at Toussaint’s retirement luncheon. “It’s always a long story. He has the ability to elaborate, you could put it like that.”
Firefighters joked with Toussaint and congratulated him as they ate burgers and cake Friday in the day room at the station’s headquarters on Algonquin Road.
Friday marked Toussaint’s last day after 26 years with the department, in which he worked as a firefighter, lieutenant, captain and most recently as the fire prevention bureau chief.
Toussaint said the department consisted of a fire chief, a secretary, and four firefighters when he started in August 1981. The department’s two fire stations at the time were staffed only from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, so Toussaint and others constantly were on call.
“That meant you didn’t finish dinner; that meant you got up at 3 o’clock in the morning,” said Toussaint, 59, who plans to head to Wisconsin for hunting trips this fall and eventually might help other fire departments. “You were the crew because the station wasn’t manned.”
The area’s rapid population growth forced the fire department to keep pace, and eventually the department added a third station and dozens of extra staff.
Toussaint offered history lessons to young firefighters and ensured that all their reports were properly completed, colleagues said. He also worked as the department’s fire and arson investigator.
“Any time you need to know anything about a fire or a fire investigation, you just ask him, and he’d have an answer,” said Mary Christiansen, who has worked with Toussaint for the past 12 years. “I don’t know who else to go to for as much as he knows.”
