History

East Dundee Countryside and Fire Protection District began as a volunteer municipal department in 1890 providing services to the Village of East Dundee which was established only 20 years earlier. The department was converted to a Fire Protection District in 1954 and now helps provide services to our neighbors in West Dundee, Carpentersville, Rutland, Algonquin, Elgin, Streamwood, Barrington, Village of Barrington, and Barrington Hills.  

Celebrating 135 years of services in 2025, East Dundee Fire District is currently a combination career/part-time fire department that is responsible for emergency response calls like fire, rescue, and medical to residents and non-residents and protects approximately an 12 square response area split between Kane and Cook counties.  Even though East Dundee is a minimally populated village, throughout our Automatic Mutual Aid agreements we serve over 200,000 community members.
 

Within our one station, East Dundee Fire’s personnel consists of one (1) Fire Chief, one (1) Deputy Chief, one (1) Administrative Assistant, one (1) Fire Marshal, three (3) Lieutenants, nine (9) career full-time and fourteen (14) part-time firefighter/paramedics.

East Dundee Fire staffs 5-6 personnel per-shift in addition to the Fire Chief and Deputy Chief who are assigned to daytime hours. Your district takes pride in having state-of-the-art water rescue/dive teams as well as members who are a part of the MABAS Division 2 Hazardous Materials response team and Technical Rescue Team.   

Our Fire Chiefs Through the Years:

 (Prior to 1923 the Title "Fire Marshal" Was Used):

1890-1891: George Haverkampf

1891-1903: Charles Quicker

1903-1914: Fred Reimer

1914-1919: Theo Bruhn

1919-1923: Charles Heideman 

1923-1964: Max Freeman

1964-1986: Gene Rakow

1986- 2011: Mark Rakow

2011-2017: Steve Schmitendorf

2017-2019: Randy Freise

2019-Present: Jason Parthun