Retired assistant chief keeps fighting blazes as volunteer

Bloomington Fire Department Assistant Chief Nick Isaacs, center, comforts Rene Shaffer, left, while a Bloomington Officer looks on after a fire Shaffer's home at 3109 Spaulding Road in Bloomington, Illinois Friday afternoon (November 9, 2007). (Pantagraph/B Mosher)

Monday, February 18, 2008 12:45 PM CST

By Sharon K. Wolfe
swolfe@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON — Nick Isaacs always has been a hands-on kind of guy, so he still battles blazes even though he retired from firefighting in early February.

He volunteered about 22 years for the Danvers Community Fire Protection District, but he won’t hang up his helmet in Danvers anytime soon.

Instead, he’ll trade it for a motorcycle helmet for trips on his Firefighters Ultra Harley-Davidson cycle. “March is Arizona. May is Arkansas. June is Niagara Falls, N.Y., and coming back the Canadian side. August is Sturgis.”

The South Dakota location is the site of a massive motorcycle rally.

“I’m a very hands-on type person. Not a behind-the-desk person. I always thought I wasn’t. Now I know I’m not,” said Isaacs.

His most recent position, as Bloomington assistant fire chief, was about 80 percent administrative duties.

At Bloomington fire scenes, he developed strategies outside rather than gearing up and going in. He misses the challenge of fighting a fire.

“Nick was very good at customer service — he always put the customer first,” said Bloomington Assistant Chief Rob Coleman. “He’s very well-organized.”

Isaacs volunteers as a Danvers firefighter because of his skill and to give to his community.

“I love volunteer work. I love doing it,” he said. He volunteers twice a year at Special Olympics, is a Mason, helps the Eastern Star with concessions at Illinois State University Redbird games, and with security at girls’ basketball and volleyball tournaments.

He spent 33 years at ISU’s Gamma Phi Circus, including as a student on trapeze, teeterboard and gymnastics. “I was that eight-year student,” he said, rolling eyes upward. After two years as coach, he was assistant director. His trapeze days are long over, but he’s still active.

“I exercise all the time,” he said, including racquetball at Four Seasons Club.

He and his wife, Pamela, have three daughters. Christina is a math teacher in Pekin; Cassandra works at State Farm Insurance Cos.; and Nicholette is studying culinary arts at Illinois Central College.

His wife teaches English for Unit 5 schools. He substitute teaches at Unit 5 in math, industrial arts and physical education. “I’ve always wanted to be a teacher,” he said. “That was my second love.”

But firefighting came first.

“Come on — everybody else is running out of a burning building. We are running in. We really don’t want a fire — it means somebody is going to lose something.”

But if a fire was going to happen anyway, he wanted to be there.

Difficult memories

What hit him hardest over the years are memories involving children. “We had a fire on the west side of Bloomington with two young boys,” he recalled. He gave CPR to a 7-year-old boy and then a 4-year-old boy, but to no avail.

But Isaacs also was part of bringing life into the world. He helped deliver babies three times, including one in front of the headquarters fire station.

“Gosh, I was pretty much a rookie. Steve Barr and I just came back from a fire and we were not cleaned up and we had to finish delivering a baby, which was well started, when a pickup truck pulled up in front of the station.”

Barr recently retired as an assistant chief.

Despite Isaac’s myriad of activities, he and his wife split household chores. “I do wash dishes. I am a great dishwasher.”

One thing Isaacs simply cannot do is cook. “They won’t even let me boil water at the (fire) station.”