In 36 years on the job in the Oak Park Fire Department, Ronald Kobyleski has performed a number of roles, which helps him understand the work of the 63 sworn firefighters/paramedics and six administrative personnel that he leads.
It also helped him manage a major fire at Delia’s Kitchen in downtown Oak Park that erupted the morning after he was appointed as chief.
“You lead by example,” said Kobyleski. “I’ve always been that kind of officer, from lieutenant moving up through the ranks. One of the things I learned that in becoming a good officer, you know the job behind you, you know the job in front of you.”
“If you know the job inside and out, others will respect you and follow you. A big part of our job is training. We train together, we eat together, we’re together all the time. You can almost read the other person’s mind. Very little is said on the scene (of a fire or rescue). It becomes almost like a dance or ballet. We can put up a ladder without saying a word.”
Kobyleski has done it all since his 1985 rookie days, when firefighters often did not wear breathing equipment when entering a burning structure or were not covered from head to toe with protective equipment. But experience and camaraderie pushed him and his colleagues forward to incorporate firefighting and technological advances in their jobs.
Officially appointed Nov. 22, Kobyleski hardly had a minute to celebrate. The next morning, a big fire gutted Delia’s Kitchen, 1034 Lake St. Other buildings, including a nail salon, another restaurant and movie theater, suffered damage.
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“Delia’s was a good-sized fire,” said Kobyleski. “One of the unique problems of Oak Park is it is packed together. You’ve got houses and commercial buildings close to each other. You have to get above and below on each side of the fire.
“We’ve had a couple of fires where the building was a loss. Whole buildings on Washington Boulevard. Fortunately, Oak Park has not had the raging infernos (as elsewhere). We didn’t have the the big warehouse fires like were seen in Chicago.
Delegation of authority has long been codified in the department. Despite attaining the top rank, Kobyleski did not direct the Delia’s firefighting effort. A battalion chief normally runs field operations.
“At this point, I’m the administrative liaison,” he said. “I talk to the press, keep Village Hall informed and call the agencies (involved in the follow-up).”
Formerly a deputy chief, Kobyleski also served 10 years as a battalion chief and another seven as the department’s training officer. For nine years, he was the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Division 11 hazardous materials and technical rescue team leader.
Other certifications were as fire investigator, high-rise rescue, trench rescue, confined-space rescue, advance fire officer and training program manager. He has studied architectural design and building construction.
And Kobyleski has helped deliver two babies.
“Both were in the house,” he said. “One was a preemie. The other, it was a second or third child and the baby came quickly. You just remain clam, take care of the parents and nature does its thing.”
Kobyleski is thankful for the safety and firefighting technique advances.
In the 1980s when he started, “breathing devices were fairly uncommon,” he said. “The first crew went in for speed and usually did not put them on. The second crew would put on the masks on to see what’s going on.”
Masks and protective coverings for exposed skin resulted from the knowledge that carcinogens in smoke caused many cases of throat and neck cancer in firefighters. Now, membranes keep the soot off the skin. Firefighters also are careful to wash themselves on the scene of fires. In Kobyleski’s early years, the crews did not even wash their equipment each time they returned to the station.
“If you don’t put on the masks now, you face discipline charges,” he said.
All the firefighters are also trained emergency medical technicians. They rotate between the trucks and the ambulances to keep fresh in all their tasks. Kobyleski said burnout can be an issue working ambulances, hence the need to rotate.
EMTs now offer better cardiac care on the scene. Rather than take stroke patients to any hospital, the crews will take them to a hospital with a stroke-specialization unit. Formerly, EMTs had to carry big boxes of drugs and radios. Now cell phones are used.
Fire-safety advice remains much the same—prevention and common sense.
“People should have working smoke detectors, and should not be smoking in bed,” he said. “Also, dispose of oily (flammable) rags quickly.”
Interestingly, a Thanksgiving source of fires, the frying of turkeys indoors or in close proximity to structures, is less of a problem than in the past.
“We didn’t have any fires this year,” Kobyleski said. “Years past , it was a pretty popular thing. Even outside, some people got burned or set their deck on fire. Other fires started if they had not defrosted the turkey all the way or did not calculate the proper amount of oil used.”
Job satisfaction is felt quickly by any firefighter.
“It’s the type of job that when you’re done, you’ve successfully rescued someone, it’s immediate, it’s tangible, you don’t have to wait months and years,” he said. “It’s a horrible time in someone’s life with the house burning. But for us, it’s the satisfaction of doing the job safely.”
But after everything he’s done, Kobyleski’s sense of humility is lodged squarely in the present.
“The most humbling is becoming fire chief,” he said. “I feel it’s a great honor and a privilege to become fire chief.”
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