A firefighter injured while fighting a blaze in Galesburg is back at work.
He was hurt fighting the fire at the old Hawkinson Manufacturing facility back in June and couldn't go to work for several weeks.
Now, Kevin Sullivan is back on light duty, surveying historic buildings in downtown Galesburg for fire prevention.
"A good firewall should prevent a fire from spreading for a little over an hour," said Galesburg firefighter Kevin Sullivan. He's checking out firewalls in historical buildings.
Galesburg Fire Marshal, Dan Foley, said he doesn't know which buildings have good firewalls and which ones don't --
"A lot of these were built over 100 years ago and there was planning put in to keep fire from spreading, but what's happened to those walls in the last hundred years?" Foley also said the department needs a clear account of where there are occupied apartments.
"Some of these used to be apartments but for one hundred years nobody has lived up there," he said. "If the fire is threatening a life, then that's where we want to go first."
The Galesburg Fire Department finally has the manpower to survey all of these unknowns. And that "manpower" is firefighter Kevin Sullivan.
"If there was ever a fire in one of these buildings, we would hopefully be able to prevent it and stop it from spreading into the next building," said Sullivan. He's still on the mend from injuries sustained in a blaze, so he can take his time surveying these historical buildings.
"Looking for possible holes, cracks in the wall. Ways for the fire to egress from one side of the wall to the other side of the wall," explained Sullivan.
The fire department will keep all this information on file, in the event that they need to make an emergency visit there one day.
"If that fire call does come in, we'll be able to come in and know exactly where to go," Sullivan said.
Sullivan hopes to survey dozens of historical buildings within the next week.
