By Jeannine Otto
Daily Gazette
STERLING, Ill. — Every month, Sterling Fire Chief Dave Northcutt reports to the Sterling City Council the number of calls his department has handled.
Over time, something is becoming abundantly clear, he said: The Sterling Fire Department’s call volume is skyrocketing.
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For all of 2025, he said, Sterling firefighters responded to a total of 1,831 calls; it’s the first year the department had over 1,800 calls. But Sterling Fire’s 2026 call volume – which stood at 1,313 calls as of Thursday – is now outpacing 2025 if call volume remains consistent through the end of the year.
“Our numbers just keep going up,” Northcutt said.
A glimpse into what a day at the firehouse looks like underscores how busy it can get, said Northcutt, who was appointed Sterling fire chief in April 2025 after serving about two years as Sterling’s deputy chief.
For example, on the afternoon of Aug. 7 , Sterling firefighters responded to a fire at Self Help Enterprises in Sterling. Sterling and Rock Falls firefighters, along with firefighters from seven neighboring departments, battled the blaze. One Sterling firefighter was treated at CGH Medical Center for overheating and dehydration, and was released and returned to full duty.
On-duty Sterling firefighters serve on what is described as a tour, which is composed of two consecutive 24-hour shifts. The Aug. 7 Self Help fire call happened on the first day of the two-part tour. Sterling firefighters would go on to respond to seven other calls, including at least one vehicle accident, during the first shift of that tour.
“That was the first part of their tour for those guys. They still had another day, and the next day was one of the days we had severe storms come through,” Northcutt said. “That day wasn’t as bad, actually.”
Then from noon Aug. 9 to 6:20 p.m. Aug. 11 , Sterling firefighters responded to 25 calls.
The calls the department is dispatched to range from fires and hazardous situations to medical assists and land-and-water rescues. The call volume also includes false alarms and canceled calls; most of those require the department to follow through by continuing to the scene.
“For instance, say there is an alarm call for CGH,” Northcutt said. “Their alarm goes off. They have a great maintenance staff and they find out what’s going on. It was an accident, and they call us. We still continue [to send] one piece of equipment, whether it is the chief’s vehicle or an engine, just to verify with the maintenance staff that it is a false alarm.”
When other agencies cancel calls, the procedure remains much the same.
“Rock Falls has an automatic alarm. If they call and say turn around, we don’t need you, that is a canceled alarm,” Northcutt said. Typically, the only cancellation that SFD will not continue to respond to comes from another fire department or ambulance service.
“For the 911 caller who calls and says my house is on fire, then calls back and says no, it’s not, we are still going to go,” he said.
So far in 2026, Sterling Fire has responded to 79 fire calls, including 38 structure fires; 115 hazardous situation calls; 547 medical calls; 245 public service calls, including 180 citizen assists; 32 rescue calls, including 12 water rescues; and 294 nonemergency calls, which include false alarms and canceled calls, plus one law enforcement support call.
“People are more apt to call 911 now than they ever have been. They know it works, so they are going to call versus taking themselves or taking family members themselves to the hospital,” he said. “It can also be people who call for help because their family can’t help them.”
At the same time the call volume continues to climb, the department’s staffing levels have remained mostly flat for almost 20 years.
In 2008, the city of Sterling laid off six firefighters. In the years following, the city restored three of those positions. Currently, the department has a total of 21 members, including Northcutt, Deputy Chief Brandon Monical and Administrative Assistant Angelica Dornes . The department also has one paid, on-call firefighter.
Sterling Fire Department operates two stations: the main station at 110 W. Fifth St. and Station 2 at 1510 E. Lynn Blvd. Both stations are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Typically, the main station has three firefighters on duty at all times. Staffing at Station 2 is usually two firefighters on duty. That is one less than Northcutt would like to have.
“They go on any kind of call,” he said. “They are by themselves. If it’s big enough, they have us and Rock Falls coming. But initially, they are by themselves. We are not going to let anybody go inside a structure fire by themselves. So if both of those firefighters go, the truck doesn’t have an operator. Even something as simple as a car fire, somebody has to run the truck, so that takes one person out. Somebody has to have the nozzle, so that’s the second person. Now, who’s watching the overall picture? That is where, for me, not having that third person is bad.”
In addition to responding to calls, the department handles administrative, operational and training tasks. Those include life-safety work, including doing fire inspections of new construction, along with annual and biannual fire safety reviews of existing businesses. Operations work includes cleaning and maintaining both the stations, equipment and gear, and training is ongoing. Paperwork is also something that goes along with an increased number of calls and adds to the firefighters’ shift.
“Somebody has to do those reports. On one day, their shift started at 8 a.m. We started running calls and it was probably 10 p.m. before we were done. They still have to do those reports,” he said.
Northcutt has made it a priority to increase staffing at the fire department. His immediate goal is to have three firefighters per shift per station. Before he retires, he wants to see those numbers increase.
“My goal before I leave is to have eight on a shift,” he said.
In the meantime, Northcutt continues to work hard to maintain morale and prevent burnout.
“One of the reasons we switched from one day on and two days off to two days on and four days off, they might get their butts kicked those two days, but they have four days to recover before they come back,” he said. “On some of our calls, we bring off-duty people back in. That’s why we want to get more staffing on the trucks, so we aren’t overloading a few people; we are spreading it out a little more.”
Northcutt said his department works closely with Rock Falls , Dixon and Dixon Rural, as well as other neighboring volunteer departments. During times when those departments are responding to calls, such as during the recent severe storms that swept through Dixon and Lee and Whiteside counties, calls are prioritized.
“We start prioritizing them,” he said. “There’s a tree limb on a line, and it’s arcing, but it’s not endangering a house or people. That’s lower priority than a tree fell on your house. In those cases, dispatch will tell us, ‘you have these calls,’ and we prioritize them.”
At the same time, there is increased attention paid to firefighters’ mental health as well as their physical health.
“One of the things that has drastically changed is the focus on mental health. When I started, you didn’t talk about that stuff. That was not good because this job affects you mentally. And that affects you physically; it affects your attitude, your focus, everything. We talk about calls; we call them ‘after actions.’ We talk about what we did well, what could improve. We hold each other accountable, whether it’s me or the newest firefighter,” he said.
Above all, in the face of a surging number of calls and the increased stress it brings, Northcutt said the department remains a family.
“It’s the attitude of we know we are in this together,” he said. “We know we need more people. We are going to keep asking for more people. But we know we signed up to do a job, and we are going to keep doing that job.”
© 2026 the Daily Gazette (Sterling, Ill.).
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