This from a reader:
SPECIAL UNITS RELOCATION
6-1-2 (Hose Wagon) will be relocated from Engine 26 to the quarters of Engine Company 23.
6-2-5 (Chemical / Foam Unit) will be relocated from Engine 46 to the quarters of Engine Company 16.
8-8-3 (Triage Unit) will be relocated from Engine 47 to the quarters of Engine Company 121.
8-8-12 (Ambulance Bus) will be relocated from Engine 60 to the quarters of Engine Company 84.
5-7-2 (Rehab Unit) will be relocated from Engine 68 to the quarters of Engine Company 76.
9-2-1 (Smoke Ejector) will be relocated from Engine 107 to the quarters of Engine Company 109.
9-2-2 (Smoke Ejector) will be relocated from Engine 123 to the quarters of Engine Company 116.
6-8-7A (Reserve Dive Unit) will be relocated to 1201 South Campbell, City Warehouse
Effective October 20, 2014
#1 by Fred on October 22, 2014 - 5:23 PM
Bill….I have nothing on the SS-1,2 or 3 from 60’s. Sorry
Drew…..go to FireScenes.net and it has a Search bar, type in SS1.
Click on the titles and you can see some old shots of on scene and quarters etc. Multiple postings there
#2 by Drew Smith on October 22, 2014 - 5:08 PM
Fred, can you provide a link to that post on firescenes.net as I cant seem to find it. Thanks.
#3 by Admin on October 22, 2014 - 5:35 PM
try this http://www.firescenes.net/2014/07/04/chicago-fd-ss1-a-retrospective/
#4 by Bill Post on October 22, 2014 - 4:53 PM
Thanks for the tip Fred. That was a great shot and what was even more interesting was that 1954 Mack pumper that was running as a Spare for SS 1.
Do you have any shots of the early SS 1, SS 2 and SS 3 from the 1960’s?
You probably remember that the older model Engines were running as the regularly assigned rigs on the Flying Manpower Squads from 1969 (when they went in service) until around 1973 when the Mack/Platt ,box style Flying Squads were finally put in service.
A few of the Salvage Squads had also used old Engines however at least 2 of them were also using Dodge Duravans and Salvage Squads 4 and 5 had been using ex Civil Defense International Rescue Trucks as well.
Salvage Squad 2 (on the West Side) usually ran with an old Engine and Salvage Squad 6 (at Engine 106’s house) sometimes ran with an old Engine.
Salvage Squad 3 ran with the Dodge Duravan with an Aurora Borealis light on the roof. There was at least one or maybe 2 other Dodge Duravans. One of the them had been running on Salvage Squad 6 in the beginning and the I had also seen one running on Salvage Squad 7 however I don’t really know if it was the same rig that had been reassigned or whether there actually were 2 more Duravans in addition to the one at Salvage Squad 3.
#5 by Fred on October 22, 2014 - 3:31 PM
Bill – check out one of the pic’s I posted on FireScenes.net. It has 625 as a chase (in the background). On that day it was the Ford box squad (1A) in the lead, an Engine which should have been declared an antique (Hendrickson was in the shop) and the Dry Chem 625. The house on Orleans had a Smoke Ejector and the Dry Chem in quarters along with the Snorkel and box rig. This was 77-78. We used the Dry Chem strictly as transport. Normally, it was just the Hendrickson rig and the Ford box….and riding in the box “crew compartment” was torture, which is why pulling 625 for transport was valuable to have!!
#6 by Bill Post on October 22, 2014 - 9:40 AM
I wonder if a retrofit can be done from new or more exhaust tubes at some of the stations? Engine 116’s house is not the ideal place for an unmanned special duty rig ,considering how often Engine 116 goes out on runs.
Speaking of special duty rigs, there was a short time back in the mid 1970’s when Snorkel Squad 1 was actually running with 2 (yes 2) chase rigs. Dry Chemical 5 (625) they were using a small box like GMC dry chemical rig at the time would actually run as a third piece with SS 1 on many fires. They were at SS 1’s house about 2 years however I don’t know if they ran as their third piece for all of the 2 years( mid 1976 to 1978) they were with SS 1. It was a strange site however as 625 was a small puny rig following SS 1 and SS 1A. In those days the Snorkel ran as the first section and SS 1 A was a Ford /PIerce (box) Squad. The box Squad was a walk around type and had a crew cab built into the front of the box which was built low, but did have a 300 gallon booster tank on it. Initially SS 1 A was a Fog Pressure (mini Pumper) as were SS 2 A and SS 3 A when they were in service.
#7 by CFD 1979 on October 22, 2014 - 6:38 AM
Yes, I heard that the issue was with the exhaust as well. The city has screwed up the exhaust on multiple occasions. For example, when building Engine 38’s new quarters, the company wished to go out of the doors that were closest to Pulaski, but the exhaust hookups were not there and therefore they were forced to go out of the other doors (facing east).
#8 by Dennis on October 21, 2014 - 10:11 PM
Went out today to verify that these units were actually relocated since no official order has come out. 9-2-1,9-2-2,6-1-2, 6-2-5, 8-8-12 have all been moved.
Also just to clarify SLD and the Radio Shops are two separate buildings and two separate entities. EMS personal run SLD and employee’s of OEMC run the radio shops.
The rumor behind these moves is because a few of these vehicles did not have exhaust connections at their previous firehouses and moving them to the new locations give them the exhaust connections. The union filed a complaint with IDOL about some vehicles in the firehouses not having the correct exhaust connections or none at all. I believe this is a off the cuff response to the complaint.
#9 by Bill Post on October 21, 2014 - 5:38 PM
Shaun is correct I had a misprint 885 is a Triage Van while 887 is a “Command Support Unit”.
#10 by Bill Post on October 21, 2014 - 5:35 PM
Mass Casualty Unit (Triage Van) 884 is located at Engine 23, while 882 is located at Engine 55. Mass Casualty Unit 881 is at O’Hare Field and was using an old bus. Unit 886 was at Midway Airport using a yellow Step Van, and there are vans labeled as 887 and 888 which are located at the Support and Logistics division for EMS at 3040 S Sacramento (which is also known as the radio shops). That was the old apparatus yard that was across the street from the old CFD shops.
I believe that the reason that 625 was relocated to Engine 16, which is also the Haz Mat headquarters, is because 625 tends to get used at Haz Mat incidents.
I really don’t understand the logic of moving Smoke Ejector 922 to Engine 116 from Engine 123, as Engine 116 is generally one of the top 3 busiest engines in the city with quite a few fires as well as more then it’s share of EMS runs. As the special-duty units get taken to the emergency by in service fire companies, it only makes sense that such units get located with slower companies.
That explains why Engine 28 has several special-duty rigs at their station as it is roomy but Engine 28 is a slow company as well.
#11 by La Shaun on October 21, 2014 - 4:10 PM
The other Traige Vans;
882 Triage/MCU-200 E55
883 Triage/MCU-50 E121
884 Triage/MCU-200pt E23
885 Triage/MCU-50 SLID
888 Triage/MCU-200 SLID
8811 Oxygen Bus E107
8812 EMS Bus E84
I believe this is all.
#12 by Chris S. on October 21, 2014 - 4:23 AM
Moving 6-2-5 so far north puts it kinda close to 6-2-4 @ E4 & isn’t E16 really full already. Refresh my memory, where are the other triage vans E55 & ??. Maybe put something at E88 newer house & it’s pretty empty.