Dennis McGuire, Jr. found a summary article HERE from a downstate Bloomington publication about MABAS.

BLOOMINGTON — Mutual aid for fires or a variety of other disasters is just a single call away with a statewide system called Mutual Aid Box Alarm System.

MABAS, headquartered in Wheeling, has 68 divisions and includes all but one county in the state, said Greg Peters, finance section chief.  The organization also has relationships with other states and is hoping eventually to provide mutual aid across state lines, Peters said.

Peters said the MABAS system was created in 1968 to provide the Cook County area with an emergency box alarm system.

After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, a terrorist task force was created by Illinois’ governor. MABAS already had a system in place, so it became a charter member of the task force.