The city of Joliet was established in June 1852, and the creation the Joliet Fire Department followed in December 1853. Today, there are 10 fire stations, 157 firefighters, 19 ambulances, 12 engines, five aerials and 13 specialized vehicles.

Here is what Fire Chief Joe Formhals had to say about the department on the department's Web site:

The City of Joliet Fire Department is here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to serve our citizens and visitors alike. We provide a wide variety of services to our community of nearly 150,000 citizens. From the traditional fire department responses to our Citizen's Fire Academy, a program where you can become a part of the fire department team.

Our calls for services number over 19,000 responses annually, or about 52 runs per day. About 15,000 of those calls are Emergency Medical Service calls. To address this, we provide an Advanced Life Support Ambulance in each of our 9 operating fire stations. From our firefighting work force of 212, 193 are state certified paramedics and the remainders are first responders. These numbers have steadily increased since the first paramedic class of 24 medics back in 1989.