Friday, June 16, 2006

Paige had a few errands to run first thing in the morning. We had stopped at a nearby bank. When Paige came out of the bank he pointed to a fire rig parked on Milwaukee Avenue, just behind us. I got out of the car and saw CFD Engine 113 and thought I must be in the twilight zone. We were no where’s near Engine 113’s quarters on Chicagos far west side. We started taking photos of their brand new 2006 Sprartan/Crimson paramedic engine as we saw firefighters walking out of a building. Turns out they were at a clinic taking blood tests for drugs, a normal random process for CFD companies.

We headed to the post office where Paige had some more business to conduct. From there we headed to a close-by McDonalds for a quick breakfast sandwich around 1000 hours. It was a real quick breakfast sandwich as when we went to sit down to eat a Working Still came in for the 4700 block of N Spaulding for fire involving the rear porches of a large 3-story U-shaped apartment building.

We were only about 3 miles away, and headed in. It took us a fair amount of time to get there, as traffic in the area was very heavy. When we got on the scene the fire had been struck out but we walked in the couple blocks and got photos of a number of companies still on the scene. We couldn’t see any fire involvement to the building from the street side. Companies were picking up.

After we got back to the car we decided to head down to the Chicago Fire Academy to see what was going on. They were moving all of the wrecked cars out of the training yard for the muster on Saturday. We saw two unique pieces of antique apparatus that had been trucked in for the muster, a 1937 Buffalo sedan cab pumper and 1930s ALF pumper.

We decided to go down Taylor Street to have lunch outside at Al’s Beef with an Italian Lemonade from the Mario’s Lemonade stand across the street. What a treat! After lunch we headed towards the lake front, and ended up driving up to Montrose Harbor. It was another 90 degree day, but much cooler along Lake Michigan. While we were sitting under a tree relaxing at Montrose Harbor they reported a large power outage in downtown Chicago over the fire radio. They sent a bunch of companies to assist with people trapped in elevators etc. We would find out on Saturday that all 100 CFD firefighter recruits in training were also sent down there and they assisted until late in the evening. Many people had to walk down 40 floors or more due to the power outage.

There wasn’t much else going on so we headed back to the Van Vorst home. We drove by Station 83 on the way back and marveled at how that area had been cleaned up. It used to be full of run-down apartment building full of Hillbillies. Now it is a very upscale area with most apartment buildings having been totally renovated or torn down and replaced with more modern structures. I kind of miss the ol’ Hillbillies.

We stopped for a cool snack at the local Dairy Queen before returning to the Van Vorst home. Paige got a phone call saying that their van was ready for pick up from the shop. I dropped Paige off to pick up the van.

The CFD fire radio starting getting real busy around 1430 hours. There were a couple of working stills and a lot of runs being dispatched. Around 1558 hours they sent out a Still for a fire on the roof of a commercial building at 4140 Fullerton Avenue. We decided to take it in as it sounded good. First arriving companies reported smoke on the roof of a large commercial complex. The actual address was in the 2500 block of North Keeler. The fire was knocked down by the time we arrived on the scene. We got photos of the working companies that were on the scene,

We barely made it back to the Van Vorst home before Donna returned home from work. We went out to eat at the closest Old Country Buffet (near Engine 125) and then did some shopping at the mall it was located near. We had a relaxing evening at the Van Vorst home and retired early as we were heading to the muster early the next morning.

Your Roving Reporter