Wednesday, June 14, 2006

I was suddenly jolted out of a sound sleep around 0545 hours when CFD dispatchers announced a "Still and Box Alarm fire" at 13301 S Baltimore Avenue for a fire in commercial building. When they called for the 2-11, I turned on my computer to bring up the map program to see exactly where the fire was. I also turned on the TV to the WGN morning news program to see if they would cover the fire live from one of their helicopters. (By the way, WGN does a local news show every weekday morning from I believe 0600 hours to 0900 hours, but it is only available in the Chicago area. Like KTLA (in Los Angeles) and WPIX (in New York City) they have helicopters in the air filming incidents and traffic. WGN feeds other programming to the cable systems and satelite systems.)

The request for the 3-11 came in with instructions for third alarm companies to bring in water. The fire turned out to be as far away as it could be and still be in the City of Chicago. It was in the very far SE corner of the city as possible, about two blocks from CFD Engine 97’s quarters. It would be a long drive by car, an even longer drive because the Dan Ryan Freeway is down to two lanes for construction (from seven lanes). I couldn’t even think of trying to make that trip (unless I had a helicopter). As it turned out, we had plans to go to breakfast and pick up Chuck Bleck around 0900 hours.

The WGN news soon had a helicopter overhead and every ten minutes or so would interrupt the news with a live shot of the two-story apartments over commercial building well involved in fire. There were numerous elevated streams in operation, I saw Squad 5A’s snorkel in operation and at least two Tower Ladders shooting heavy streams into the roaring inferno. Luckily, the I/C had established collapse zones around the building, as there were a number of wall collapses during the fire. After about an hour the fire seemed to darken down, but the building was a total loss. The second floor had totally collapsed onto the first floor after the walls had given way. It sure would have been nice to get out to that fire, as I needed photos of almost every company on the scene. Oh well.

We headed to breakfast and to pick up Chuck Bleck around 0800 hours. We ate at a really neat little and popular bakery on Foster Avenue that was a favorite of Paige and Donna’s. I called Chuck from the bakery and we picked him up around 0915. While we were waiting for Chuck to come down, we heard M.A.B.A.S. (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) strike a 2nd alarm in Bellwood (about 25 miles away) for a reported hazardous materials incident. At the time we didn’t know if they had a chemical spill or just what. They had requested numerous ambulances to the scene.

The four of us were headed back towards the Van Vorst home as Paige had to go into work for an hour or so and he was going to drop Donna off at her daughters new home in the western suburbs on the way to work. On the way back to the Van Vorst home, we heard nearby CFD Engine 89 and Truck 56 report they were out on a drill on Rogers Avenue. As we were very close by we stopped and got photos of the hard-to-get-companies (their station is on an extremely busy street with a very short ramp). Those photos were posted in yesterdays report.

By the time we got back in the car, the fire in Bellwood was a 4th alarm. We still didn’t know exactly what was going on out there and then we heard someone give a building description, "a 500 x 600-foot manufacturing plant". Just as we were dropping Paige and Donna off, the Bellwood fire went to a 5th Alarm. Chuck and I headed in that direction and as we got a littlke further west we could see a pretty good loom up off on the horizon.

The fire was at 840 N 25th Avenue, in Bellwood and special calls beyond the fifth were made for more foam and three more engines to the scene. It was a slow drive out as there were no freeways going in the direction we were headed. We decided to head south and picked up the Eisenhower (I-290) Freeway the last four or five miles as we traveled west.

We got off the freeway on the west side of the fire and drove around a few blocks until we found a way to get closer in to the fire scene. The smoke was not as black as it had been just earlier and it looked like they were getting control of the situation as we parked and began the long walk into the fire scene. We ran into a very nice police officer that hesitantly let us beyond the fire lines and into the fire scene. There was a a foul oder in the air, that was for sure. I don't know if it would have been wise to be there any earlier when the chemicals were still burning as it seemed very caustic.

We had been worried about getting close enough to get any photos at all. We arrived on the scene around 1050 hours after about a three block walk where we were required to stay a distance away from the large manufacturing building. The fire was in the rear corner of the building (furthest corner from us)..There was very little visible smoke left as we neared the fire building. We started taking apparatus photos as we walked around the perimeter of the scene. The explosion and fire had occurred in the rear of the block square building, an area we could not get near to. We would later learn that one employee was killed in the explosion and others had been burned when one of the large cylindrical tanks in the rear had exploded and burned. I really don't think the building was involved, but it was hard to tell.from where we had access.

There were at least 30 pieces of fire apparatus on the scene and a number of ambulances also. We got as many apparatus shots as we could as some of the rigs were near the SW corner of the building where you could see the large chemical tanks towering above the building (we had no access to that area). We walked around the scene very carefully so as not to call any attention to ourselves, as security was pretty tight. We got photos of about 25 rigs before we decided we better head back to the car. We had to meet Paige around noon so we could head to the CFD Fire Museum. It was a long walk back to the car and a long drive back to the Van Vorst home.

We headed back towards the Van Vorst home as we expected Paige to finish up his work and meet us there. Chuck and I went over recent CFD apparatus reassignments as we waited for Paige to return home. Paige showed up and we headed down the Kennedy Freeway towards the CFD Fire Museum on the south side. We dropped by the CFD Fire Academy to see if there were any rigs we could photograph. There were only a couple ambulances in the yard and a training truck (in yesterdays report).

We also stopped by Mario’s Italian Lemonade Stand for a quick pick-me-up before heading to the museum. Oh, is that stuff great! At this time the Museum is temporarily located on the third floor of the Saint Gabriel Catholic School at 4500 S. Wallace. I had the opportunity to visit the museum last year with Chuck Bleck. It was Paige’s first visit to the Museum and he was quite impressed with the collection of books, firematic items and the detailed notebooks on each and every CFD company. We spent a good hour or more looking through their impressive collection.

On the way back we drove by CFD Station 60 to try and get photos of Haz Mat 5-1-2, but discovered it was in the shop when we arrived. We were taking photos of Tower Ladder 37 when Engine 60 and the Tower got a fire run to a pulled box. We started heading back and slowly made out way back up north along Lake Shore Boulevard during the rush hour. After dropping off Chuck, Paige and I picked up dinner on the way back to the Van Vorst home.

We watched both fires on the WGN news later that night. They had very good video coverage of the CFD 3-11, but not-so-great coverage of the 5th alarm in Bellwood. Donna had picked up some pies (one, my absolute favorite) and we all enjoyed a late evening desert as we watched the news coverage.

Your Roving Reporter