Trisha Diduch, the planning and development administrator for Rockton, said she estimates about 1,000 people were affected by the evacuation order. Pritzker's office expanded the evacuation zone from a 1- to a 2-mile radius from the plant “out of an abundance of caution,” and encouraged people within that zone to wear masks to prevent them from inhaling soot. warning that fire officials had ordered a mandatory evacuation of homes and businesses near the plant. The Rockton Police Department posted an alert at 8:46 a.m. Wilson said there was “no danger to air quality at ground level.” The plumes became so big they were being picked up on weather radar. Chemtool's parent company, Lubrizol Corp., later said there were closer to 50 employees present when the plant was evacuated. Rockton Fire Department Chief Kirk Wilson said about 70 employees were evacuated safely from the plant, and that one firefighter suffered a minor injury. We got it right this year if anything, that's something we're going to hang our hat on, not something that's going to make me run away from it.CHICAGO - An explosion at a northern Illinois chemical plant Monday morning sparked massive fires that sent flames and huge plumes of thick black smoke high into the air and debris raining onto the ground, prompting evacuations.Īfter 7 a.m., emergency crews rushed to the scene of the fire near Rockton, northwest of Chicago, at Chemtool Inc., a company that manufactures lubricants, grease products and other fluids, and is, according to the company, the largest manufacturer of grease in the Americas. That's been a five-year effort to try and get that right. We'll work with them to do them or we'll take them back and do them ourselves next year. 'What we have left is to work with the local fire departments that volunteered to do those inspections,' Perez said. Perez said the office is improving its efforts to complete state school inspections, adding that for the first time in its history all schools assigned to the department received a complete safety examination. 'They're the ones where (when) you see the ads for spaghetti dinners or pancake breakfasts, those aren't (just) social events, those are fundraisers to put gas in their trucks. I really wanted to dedicate our efforts to those that needed it the most, the volunteer departments, the smallest departments. When I came down here, I found out quickly that not everybody was in the same boat as we were. 'We were the second-biggest department behind Chicago and we had everything we needed. 'When I was in Aurora, we were a career department,' Perez said. He also feels proud of helping provide more resources to small and rural departments. Perez said he is proud of expanding what the office can do in terms of hiring more workers and getting the resources needed to protect people and property from fire-related incidents.

He had served as a firefighter and division chief of fire safety prior to becoming the marshal. Simpson spent 26 years with the Springfield Fire Department prior to moving into the state office, with the final year spent as the fire marshal.

Simpson will take over for Perez on Tuesday. Perez will be replaced on an interim basis by former Springfield Fire Marshal Dale Simpson, who has been working for the Office of the State Fire Marshal since 2013.

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