Just before 2:00PM on Thursday, (4/22/21) fire companies from Long Grove, Buffalo Grove, Palatine, Lake Zurich, Prospect Heights, Mundelein, the Countryside FPD, the Lincolnshire-Riverwoods FPD, Barrington, and Elk Grove Township were dispatched for a house fire at 3159 Cuba Road in Long Grove. Initial reports were of fire on the roof that the resident was attempting to extinguish. The 6,000 square foot home with a cedar shake roof is located roughly 1,000 feet from the road with a winding driveway and wooden bridge for access.
A dispatcher notified responding units that the homeowner had reportedly reentered the home, but was outside again when the first units arrived. Long Grove units saw fire from the attic in front of the house and from the rear as well upon conducting an initial size up. The alarm was upgraded to a working fire bringing more resources including several additional tankers.
An interior attack was made and found heavy fire inside the home before firefighters were forced to retreat and change to defensive operations. Long Grove Tanker 55 with 3,000 gallons of water and Squad 55 with 730 gallons were both in the driveway followed shortly thereafter by Lake Zurich Engine 324 with another 750 gallons after they dropped 750′ of 5″ hose up the driveway on their way in. The alarm was upgraded to a MABAS Box Alarm which later was upgraded to a 2nd and then a 3rd Alarm.
A deck gun was used to attack the fire until the initial 4800-gallon combined water supply was depleted while additional companies initiated a water supply from the street. Tankers shuttled water from two fill sites, one east and the other from the west.
At one point ammunition inside was heard exploding. Embers from the fire spread to the east starting several small brush fires. The wind-driven fire spread quickly and totally consumed the house which was completely destroyed.
Larry Shapiro photo
An incomplete list of agencies at the scene includes:
- Long Grove FPD – battalion chief, chief, squad, tanker
- Buffalo Grove – chief, battalion chief, tower ladder, ambulance, MobileComm
- Prospect Heights – chief, tanker
- Lincolnshire-Riverwoods FPD – battalion chief, squad
- Deerfield-Riverwoods FPD – squad
- Palatine – squad
- Barrington – chief
- Barrington Countryside FPD – battalion chief
- Elk Grove Village – ambulance
- Mundelein – ambulance
- Wheeling – chief, ambulance
- Lake Zurich – engine, chief
- Mount Prospect – engine
- Highland Park – engine
- Gurnee – engine
- Lake Forest – engine
- Palatine Rural FPD – tanker
- Countryside FPD – tanker
- Grayslake FPD – tanker
- Elk Grove Township FPD – tanker
- Round Lake FPD – tanker
- Cary FPD – tanker
- Lake Villa FPD – tanker
- Nunda Rural FPD – tanker
- Fox River Grove FPD – tanker
- Wauconda FPD – tanker
- Northbrook – tower ladder
#1 by Drew Smith on April 25, 2021 - 10:44 PM
A few additional points about MABAS Box Cards i’d like to add the The DH’s excellent description:
Typically, each community is only asked to send one vehicle so as to not strip a community of its protection. There are some arrangements where at the “still” level or even the box (first-alarm) level a single FD may send more than one vehicle. Also, as the alarm level is elevated apparatus then travels from farther and farther away. At a typical third-alarm level it may take in excess of 20 minutes for some vehicles to travel to the scene.
With regard to this Long Grove incident, I would presume that the Arlington Heights and Libertyville companies were simply unavailable at the time of dispatch. There are lots of reasons this could occur. AH is usually due into much of Long Grove on either the reported fire or confirmed fire alarm levels.
Fox Lake’s newer Alexis tanker was in attendance and did shuttle quite a few loads of water.
You can see some sample MABAS Box Alarm cards here
http://www.mabas3.org/documents/box-cards/
https://www.mabas1.org/box-cards.html
https://www.mabas-il.org/dispatchers/Pages/Box-Card.aspx
#2 by Steve on April 25, 2021 - 6:26 PM
DH, Thank you very much for the explanation. It seems like a baseball teams roster card …
#3 by The DH on April 25, 2021 - 1:19 PM
Steve, the chiefs of departments make decisions on the MABAS Box Cards. Then the box cards are sent to the various departments for their chiefs to approve of their department responding. The cards are then finalized and given to the MABAS dispatch for the area. So when an extra alarm fire or other event happens, the incident commander just says upgrade the alarm and the dispatch sends whoever is due. Instead of the IC having to ask for apparatus from specific departments.
#4 by Bill on April 24, 2021 - 9:09 PM
I’m surprised Libertyville or fox lake didn’t have their monster tenders there
#5 by Steve on April 24, 2021 - 6:02 PM
Hello, how are the various departments selected for fires like this? For example, I see Deerfield/Riverwoods squad was selected, why not the Libertyville squad as it is closer or an Arlington Heights Ambulance versus the one from Elk Grove Village? Thank you!
#6 by Jimmy Bolf on April 24, 2021 - 3:18 PM
Lake Zurich had a chief there as well