This from Tim Olk:
Alley garage fire at Maypole and Cicero in Chicago
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Archive for February, 2020
Alley garage fire in Chicago
Feb 27
Niles Fire Department news
Feb 26
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.
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
Steve Redick photo
Steve Redick photo
Steve Redick photo
Steve Redick photo
Steve Redick photo
Steve Redick photo
Steve Redick photo
Steve Redick photo
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.
This from Tim Olk:
Evanston Fire Department Funeral For Chaplin David Jones
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Excerpts from Chicago.cbslocal.com:
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has announced that Chicago will get more ambulances – in response to ongoing CBS 2 investigative reports documenting a serious shortage. But the problems continue. And recently, 911 Center dispatchers were juggling calls from the public and even
first respondersfirefighters needing ambulance assistance, but were told no ambulances were available.On Jan. 21 during a two-and-a-half-hour period, the city said there were 67 calls for ambulances on the South Side that lead to problems.
At 2:23 p.m., a caller told the 911 dispatcher: “There’s an accident. Somebody’s hurt real bad.” It was a two-car crash at 71st and State streets. One car was on fire. A firefighter on the scene called for an ambulance. “We’re out of ambulances,” the dispatcher responds. A firefighter made a second call and told the dispatcher: “We’re going to need a second ambulance at this address.” The dispatcher replied: “All right Truck 20, you need two?… We have no one.”
Three minutes later, another 911 call came in from the Ford Assembly Plant at 126th Street and Torrence Avenue. The 911 caller said: “There’s a lady that’s pregnant. She’s having pains. They say she’s having contractions.” A fire engine arrived first and called for an ambulance. The response from a dispatcher was, “We don’t have anybody right now.”
And then at 2:31 p.m., a call came in near 92nd Street and Perry Avenue. The dispatcher said: “Person down for (Engine) 82.” The homeowner ran to his neighbors for help after his wife fell and hit her head. The neighbor called 911 for an ambulance. The fire engine arrived with a paramedic on board. Engine 82 called the 911 center for a status report: “Eighty-two to Englewood. We’re doing CPR here.” Ambulance 22 arrived 15 minutes after the first call to 911.
Illinois Department of Public Health records show the Chicago Fire Department has committed to a response time goal of six minutes. In all these cases, the ambulance response times were three to five times longer than that six-minute goal.
Just hours after reporters started asking questions about these incidents, dispatchers at the got an email from Fire Commissioner Richard Ford who wrote, “The process of indicating that CFD is out of available ambulances or asking for any available ambulances over the radio will no longer be allowed.”
The question is when will Mayor Lightfoot do something about it?
A spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department denies the fire commissioner is trying to cover up the ambulance shortage problem, saying in a written statement that is not only unwarranted but demonstrably false. He said there were three other ambulances available in other parts of the city in the time period during which the people in this story were waiting for an ambulance. The fire department is now working with the Office of Emergency Management to develop specific language that will avoid future confusion. He also said that to improve ambulance response times, the fire department and University of Chicago Urban Labs are completing a comprehensive analysis of the ambulance fleet to ensure it meets the needs of the city. The study will focus on the impact of five new ambulances added to the fleet by the previous mayor following earlier investigative reports.
thanks Danny
This from Tim Olk:
Chicago Fire Department Working Fire at 1320 N Pine, 2/23/20
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
New engine for Schiller Park
Feb 25
From the Fire Service, Inc. Facebook page:
Congratulations to Schiller Park Fire Department on the order of their 2021 E-ONE Fire Trucks Pumper!
We are eager to begin the process of building an apparatus your community can depend on!
click to download
thanks Danny
Excerpts from the NWHerald.com:
The Wonder Lake Fire Protection District is asking voters to approve a referendum March 17 election ballot increasing its property tax levy. An average homeowner with a $100,000 home currently pays $153 in taxes to the Wonder Lake Fire Protection District. If the referendum is successful, that would go up by $33, so the homeowner would pay $186. The amount of taxes currently able to be levied for the fire district is $963,994. The amount the WLFPD is asking for is $1,152,054.
One of the reasons this increase is needed is because the department is dealing with a 52 percent increase in general and workers compensation insurance. These are based on the pay of the worker, and will increase significantly when minimum wage becomes $15 an hour. The minimum wage increased this year, and per state law, will continue to go up until 2025, when it hits that $15 mark. With the current tax rate, the fire district’s budget will be consumed by payroll, leaving them with a deficit for operations.
Calls to the fire protection district have gone up by 43 percent over the past 19 years. Having only three members causes the fire district to have jump crew. If there’s a call for an ambulance, all three go to the ambulance call, and if there’s a fire call, all three go to the fire call. If people are waiting for an ambulance or fire truck to come from McHenry or Richmond, that could mean a 12- to 15-minute wait.
In addition, the district’s equipment is aging. One of their front line engines is 26 years old. Engines made now are safer in the event of a rollover and have more protection for the people in the vehicles. With newer equipment, maintenance on the vehicles would go down, and the district could stop putting more money it can’t afford into these engines.
If the referendum gets approved, the fire district won’t actually see any additional money for a year, but after that year they would put a bid out for a new engine. If this referendum is not approved, it could mean potentially lowering the on-duty personnel.
There have been things the fire district has done to lower costs for the community, such as applying for state grants. In addition, they have minimized their command staff by not replacing people when they resigned.
Excerpts from fox32chicago.com:
About 8:50 a.m.Saturday, someone called the Naperville Fire Department about an alarm sounding from a first-floor apartment in the first block of Olympus Drive. When fire crews arrived about five minutes later, they saw smoke pouring from the apartment and immediately entered. One person was found dead inside the apartment. The fire, which was burning in the bedroom, was put out within five minutes. No one else was inside the apartment. Investigators believe the fire was accidental, and police do not suspect any foul play.
