Archive for February 26th, 2020

Niles Fire Department news

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

Michelle Aprati, a mother of four and a Niles firefighter and paramedic for the last 16 years was working a shift when she received word that she had breast cancer. The hardest part of her diagnosis was telling her family — both at home and at the firehouse. And like family, the men of the Niles Fire Department stepped forward to offer their support.

On Feb. 16, they and members of the Park Ridge, North Maine, Morton Grove, Skoki,e and Glenview fire departments gathered at the Niles fire station to shave their heads in solidarity with Aprati, who is in the middle of her first phase of chemotherapy treatments. She had been planning to have her husband shave her head due to the hair loss she was experiencing from the treatments, but when she heard members of the department wanted to do a mass shaving event at the fire station, she agreed to hold off.

The event also acted as a fundraiser to help pay her medical expenses not covered by insurance. When someone offered to donate $500 if Fire Chief Marty Feld agreed to shave his decades-old mustache in addition to the hair on his head, Aprati picked up the shaver. About 50 people, most of them fire personnel or family members, volunteered to have their heads shaved. 

In addition to contributing financial donations, firefighters sold pins shaped like pink ribbons to raise money for Aprati. She is the only female firefighter/paramedic in Niles hired in 2003 and working there ever since. Her father was a fire chief in Elk Grove Village and Itasca.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in December, she is in her sixth of 12 rounds of chemotherapy and has felt well enough to continue working her regular shifts. She acknowledges, though, that as her treatment progresses, fatigue may force her to take some time off. After her first series of treatments, she will begin a second phase that requires four cycles of new cancer-fighting drugs. Surgery and radiation will follow. Her cancer spread to her lymph nodes and is considered to be stage 3 or 4, but she explained that she is taking her doctor’s advice to focus on how it is being treated, rather than the stage given to it.

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House fire in Park Ridge, 2-25-20

This from Steve Redick:

Took this job in Tuesday afternoon. I arrived about 10 minutes in and it was all but over. It appears they had quite a volume of fire but were able to knock it down very quickly. If you notice the Niles engine and tower ladder were set up for master stream operations but not used. The first-in Park Ridge quint was heavily damaged in a previous fire and I believe the ladder is out of service. I think it’s running without the aerial being used.
 
Steve
aftermath of house fire

Steve Redick photo

Firefighters stand by at house fire

Steve Redick photo

Pierce Dash CF PUC tower ladder

Steve Redick photo

E-ONE tower ladder at fire scene

Steve Redick photo

aftermath of house fire

Steve Redick photo

Pierce Dash CF PUC fire engine

Steve Redick photo

Pierce tower ladder

Steve Redick photo

pierce Enforcer fire engine

Steve Redick photo

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Homewood Fire Department news

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

Every year at the end of March, firefighters and the family of fallen Firefighter Brian Carey meet at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery for a memorial service. It will be 10 years ago on March 30 when 28-year-old Carey, a rookie firefighter for the Homewood Fire Department, was killed after he rushed into a burning home in an effort to rescue a resident trapped.

A lot went wrong that night in the way the situation was handled. There was no chance to save 87-year-old Wendell Elias from the burning home by the time firefighters from multiple departments arrived, and Carey should have never been in there. A federal report  blamed ineffective fire control tactics among the factors that led to the death of Carey, who was the first firefighter to be killed in the line of duty in the Homewood Fire Department’s 109-year-old history.

After the tragedy, Homewood Fire Chief Bob Grabowski promised the Carey family there would be better training in the department to ensure a tragedy like that would never happen again as a result of factors listed in the report.

Ten years later, fire officials from across the south suburbs say firefighting tactics have significantly changed since the tragedy. A training center, the first of its kind in Illinois, was opened in 2011 in Homewood and named after Carey. At the Brian Carey Training Center, firefighters from 20 different communities across the Southland train together to learn their individual roles so they can better provide coordinated efforts when working on a scene together.

Homewood firefighters train every day and twice a month with firefighters from other departments. Previously, there was no daily training or set schedule for training, which was common in the fire service at the time. Many of the firefighters were paid on-call, so they didn’t have time to train regularly and there wasn’t enough money given to fire departments.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report following Carey’s death cited firefighters’ failure to recognize, understand, and react to deteriorating conditions, uncoordinated ventilation and its effect on fire behavior, and inadequate risk-versus-gain analysis as contributing factors.

Firefighters path the fire were met by Elias’ wife who told them her husband inside was paralyzed. A proper risk-versus-gain analysis by a commander would’ve revealed there was no way to save Elias at that point and it wouldn’t have been worth putting other firefighters’ lives in danger entering the building. Crews also were performing both horizontal and vertical ventilation, but they probably should not have been performing vertical ventilation. The report notes that the house sustained an apparent ventilation-induced flashover.

Carey was caught in the flashover where temperatures can reach 1,500 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. A flashover is survivable though if a firefighter is wearing all their equipment. Another firefighter who was with Carey survived with first- and second-degree burns, but she had been nearer the exit and was wearing all her equipment. Carey was found without his headpiece even though he entered with it on and later died of asphyxiation. No one will ever truly know why Carey didn’t have his mask on. Grabowski said rookies can experience claustrophobia in certain situations and remove the headpiece in panic. Carey had been on the job for less than two months.

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Evanston Fire Department news

This from Tim Olk:

Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones

police and fire honor guard members

Tim Olk photo

Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones

Tim Olk photo

Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones

Tim Olk photo

Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones

Tim Olk photo

Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones

Tim Olk photo

Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones

Tim Olk photo

Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones

Tim Olk photo

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