This from Dan Shevlin:
Still & Box Alarm 7921 S EssexStill Time : Approx 0630Boxed by the 23rd BattalionBattalion 23 reported heavy fire on the 3rd floor of a red X building. No interior attack initially. Multiple handlines in point of vantage spots in sector 2 & 3. Squad 5 set up in the rear and Tower Ladder 39 set up in front after some good smoke was coming from the 3rd floor . After awhile an interior attack began.thanks Dan Shevlin
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
Dan Shevlin photo
#1 by Bill Post on April 14, 2013 - 4:27 AM
Jason the Chicago Fire Department did have a Snorkel Squad 3 (SS3). It officially was put in service on May 16th 1965 and was taken out of service on May 1st 1969. An interesting fact about the original SS3, is that the last 2 1/2 years it was in service (from approximately January 27th 1967 until May 1st 1969) it ran without a Snorkel assigned to it. The last several months though before they were taken out of service, the CFD officially re-designated SS3 as Rescue 3, which was an acknowledgement that they weren’t running with a Snorkel.
When SS3 was put in service, they were assigned the original Chicago Snorkel which was on a 1958 GMC chassis with a 50-foot Pitman Snorkel boom. The apparatus was running as Snorkel 1 until Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn put SS3 in service, which was to save money. The second piece was a fog-pressure unit, which was really a 300-gallon booster tank equipped (mini/type pumper) with two reels of narrow diameter rubberized hose that were attached to a high-pressure fog nozzle and also carried some of the squad equipment. At the time, all three of the Snorkel squads were running fog-pressure pumpers as their second piece.
A few weeks after SS3 was taken out of service, the same fate hit SS2 on May 16 1969. SS2 had been re-designated as Rescue 2 for the last few months they were in service. They ran their last year without a Snorkel as well. SS2 was put in service September 4th 1963. SS3’s Snorkel was incapacitated during the big snow on January 26 and 27, 1967 and “died” in a snowdrift. It was never put back in service. The CFD shops kept it however, and eventually American LaFrance acquired it and it became part of their museum collection in South Carolina.
SS1, Chicago’s original Snorkel Squad, was put in service on Oct 1st 1962. Unlike SS3, both Snorkel Squads 1 and 2 were using specially built 40-foot Snorkel booms with custom squad bodies that had been mounted on older (1955) International Harvester chassis. SS1 remained in service until October 3rd 1980.
From October 3rd 1980 until September 19th 1983, the Chicago Fire Department didn’t run with any Snorkel-squad companies. On September 19th 1983, Chicago’s current Snorkel squads were put in service when former Fire Commissioner Louis Galante combined three of the single-piece squad companies with three of the single-piece Snorkel companies to form the two-piece companies. I’m not including Squad 7 at O’Hare Field which ran as a Snorkel-squad company from February 1982 until approximately October of 1988, when they received a new heavy rescue and the Snorkel was taken out of service.
Chicago’s current squad companies which were put in service in September of 1983 are numbered for the fire districts that they are located in. This is why there is a Squad 1, 2 and 5, but not a Squad 3. The original Snorkel-squad companies which were put in service during the 1960’s were numbered consecutively 1, 2 and 3, however SS3 was in service for only four years and it ran with a Snorkel for less then two years.
#2 by Dennis on April 12, 2013 - 9:23 PM
Jason, Yes there was a SS3 but it was disbanded a while ago. Just an FYI, the tv show Chicago Fire has used two different spare rigs for their “Squad 3”. The rigs were repainted and numbered for them and they are currently still being used as spares for the fire dept. One rig is the spare haz-mat rig and the other rig is a spare box rig for the squads.
#3 by Jason on April 12, 2013 - 7:06 PM
I remember seeing a fire from ChicagoFD1’s Classic Chicago Montage in a building that looked JUST LIKE this one. Some Snorkel numbered “3” was there. By any chance, was there ever a Snorkel Squad 3, and if so, when was it disbanded?
#4 by Martin Nowak on April 10, 2013 - 8:58 PM
I know what you mean ahahaha. But great work
#5 by Dan on April 10, 2013 - 5:47 PM
Dam it !!! I sure did … Thanks … Tired after midnights
#6 by Martin Nowak on April 10, 2013 - 5:14 PM
I like the old brick work. Nice pictures Dan. Did you mean Tower 34?